At a U.S federal court in Miami on Thursday, July 6, 2023, Walt Nauta, aide of Former U.S President Donald Trump, pleaded not guilty to charges that he helped the former President to hide classified documents from federal authorities.
Nauta’s arraignment was supposed to have happened twice before, but he had faced difficulties in securing a lawyer licensed in Florida and one appearance was postponed because of his travel troubles.
Ahead of his arraignment, Nauta hired Sasha Dadan, a criminal defense attorney and former public defender whose main law office is in Fort Pierce, where the judge who would be handling the trial is based.
Dadan appeared in court with Nauta, alongside his Washington lawyer, Stanley Woodward, who entered the not guilty plea on Nauta’s behalf.
Nauta was asked whether he had reviewed the indictment during the brief court appearance. To which he replied, “Yes, Your Honor.” He and his lawyers exited the courthouse after the arraignment and entered a Black Mercedes-Benz sedan without answering questions from reporters.
Nauta was charged alongside Trump in June in a 38-count indictment alleging the mishandling of classified documents.
Trump pleaded not guilty during his June 13 arraignment to charges including willful retention of national defense information. However, Nauta’s arraignment was postponed that day because of the lawyer situation and then was pushed back again last week when a flight he was to have taken from New Jersey, was canceled.
The indictment filed by special counsel Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors accuses Nauta of conspiring with Trump to conceal records that the former President had taken with him from the White House after his term ended in January 2021.
Nauta Faces Six Charges Of Conspiracy
Nauta is facing six charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, false statements, and withholding and concealing documents related to the case.
A Trump lawyer was charged with searching Trump’s house for secret materials that needed to be given over to the government, and according to the prosecution, Nauta moved boxes of documents with classification marks on the former President’s orders so they would not be discovered.
The Justice Department was given the false impression, according to the prosecution, that a “diligent search” had been conducted for classified materials and that all papers relevant to a subpoena had been delivered.
The relocation of the boxes was captured on surveillance camera footage that the Justice Department had subpoenaed, and agents, as well as prosecutors cited those actions as a basis for probable cause that a crime had been committed in their August warrant application to search Mar-a-Lago, according to newly unsealed information from the application.
Prosecutors also claim that Nauta misled the FBI during an interview with agents last year when he said he was unaware of boxes of documents having been brought to Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.
Meanwhile, Trump defended Nauta in June, accusing prosecutors of pushing to destroy his aide’s life in hopes that he would say “bad things” about him. “He is strong, brave, and a Great Patriot,” Trump said of Nauta in a social media post last month.
U.S District Judge, Aileen Cannon set August 14, 2023, as the initial trial date for the Trump case. However, prosecutors have asked for the trial to be postponed until December.
Arguments about what evidence may be admitted at trial usually take months to settle. Further complicating Trump’s prosecution is the need to set up a system to deal with the classified documents at the heart of the case that cannot be seen by jurors and lawyers.
Cannon has set a July 14 hearing over how classified information in the case will be handled.
