FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A lawyer for Donald Trump’s personal assistant accused federal prosecutors Wednesday of targeting the aide because he refused to cooperate against the former president in the classified documents case. One of the prosecutors called the accusation “garbage.”
Walt Nauta was indicted last year along with Trump in a federal case accusing him of conspiring to hide boxes of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. Both have pleaded not guilty.
The trial in the case, which is one of four criminal proceedings against Trump, had been scheduled for May 20, but Judge Aileen Cannon cited numerous issues she had to resolve as reason for canceling the trial date. Prosecutors and defense attorneys appeared in court Wednesday for the first time since the judge indefinitely postponed the trial earlier this month.
Stanley Woodward, Nauta’s attorney, agreed with Cannon that there was insufficient evidence to dismiss the charge based on the vindictive prosecution argument. But he said there were reasons for her to order prosecutors to present all the communications they had about Nauta and see if there was hostility.
He said he believed his client was only being prosecuted because he refused to testify against Trump and because he exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by refusing to testify a second time before a grand jury.
“There was a campaign to get Mr. Nauta to cooperate in the first legal trial of a former president of the United States, and when he refused, they prosecuted him,” Woodward told the judge. “That is a violation of their constitutional rights.”
Prosecutor David Harbach, a member of special counsel Jack Smith’s team that brought the case, called Woodward’s argument “garbage” and said it’s normal for defendants to be offered a better deal if they cooperate, and that a second accusation does not amount to vindictive persecution.
“There is not a single piece of evidence of animosity toward Mr. Nauta,” Harbach told Cannon.
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Tucker reported from Washington.
