Walt Nauta, an aide to the former President, Donald Trump, submitted a not guilty plea on Thursday, July 6, to the multiple charges against him relating to the alleged mishandling of classified material at Mar-a-Lago. Nauta was charged with several federal charges of conspiring with Mr. Trump to obstruct the government’s prolonged efforts to retrieve a load of highly sensitive national security documents which the former president left after his presidency.
According to the Associated Press, Nauta additionally hired a new attorney based in Florida to represent him in this case after he had difficulties retaining a lawyer licensed in the state.
The 40-year-old Navy Veteran from Guam was charged with Donald Trump last month on a thirty-eight count indictment with conspiracy, making false statements and withholding documents. However, he was not arraigned with Trump on June 13 because Woodwaed had not yet hired a lawyer licensed to practice in the state of Florida.
Due to problems with travel and attorney issues, Nauta’s arraignment had been postponed several times after having been charged with Trump last month for the alleged mishandling of classified documents.
A Washington-based attorney, Stanley Woodward Jr., submitted the not-guilty plea for Walt Nauta. He pleaded not guilty to obstruction and concealment charges. This was done during a brief arraignment in Federal District Court in Miami. Woodward was in company with the aforementioned Florida lawyer, Sasha Dadan.
Dadan, a former public defender, has scarce experience with the federal courts. In fact, her name doesn’t appear in PACER, the nationwide database of federal cases. Though, she has experience handling several local cases in Fort Pierce, Florida. This is where Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the judge overseeing the prosecution, is primarily based and where former President Donald Trump;’s trial with Nauta may be held in the end.
Ms. Daden has also recently been active in Republican politics in the last few years, organizing an unsuccessful campaign for the Florida House back in 2018.
Walt Nauta was charged with these crimes based on footage released earlier this week in a less redacted version of the FBI’s affidavit, which was used to secure the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. The indictment was filed by the office of special counsel Jack Smith. The footage provided describes how Nauta would often move boxes at Trump’s request in and out of the storage room in his Mar-a-Lago home and private club during a critical period – the weeks between the issuance of a subpoena in May 2022 ordering the return of all classified documents in the former president’s possession and a visit to Mar-a-Lago quickly after by the federal prosecutors seeking to enforce the subpoena and seize all the materials they have been asking for.
The indictment states that Nauta removed up to sixty-four boxes from the storage room in those critical weeks but reportedly only brought back around thirty. The rest being unaccounted for and seemingly gone. All of this happened before one of Trump’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran could sort through the remaining material in the storage room in order to find any classified material that may have been left behind and turn it over to the government.
Nauta’s arraignment was brief and a very ceremonial procedure. It was completely typical and had none of the circuslike theatrics that Donald Trump’s arraignment had in Miami. Woodward spoke mostly to enter Nauta’s not guilty plea and request a jury trial in front of Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres and lasted roughly ten minutes.
Nauta served as one of Trump’s White House valets before he was hired to work for him at Mar-a-Lago. Now, he is held in a delicate position being both the former president’s co-defendant in a highly anticipated and viewed federal prosecution and one of his most deep seated employees. This leaves Trump in a complicated place, under a court order not to discuss the details of the indictment with greater than eighty people involved within the case, including Walt Nauta, whose main job is to become a shadow for the former president everywhere he goes and to cater to his needs.
Far before the indictment was filed, the government had begun their attempts to get Nauta to rebel and turn on Trump and instead cooperate with their investigation. As early as fall of 2022, Washington prosecutors augmented the pressure on Nauta and Woodward, expressing their skepticism of Nauta’s story about moving boxes for Trump.
Rephrased from: The Republic Brief By: Trump Knows
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Rephrased from Trump Knows by InfoArmed