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Trump valet arraignment in classified documents case delayed to July Trump valet arraignment delayed after losing Florida lawyer over fees dispute
(about 7 hours later)
The valet, Walt Nauta, could not be arraigned after he was unable to find a Florida attorney and could not make it to court Exclusive: Walt Nauta remains without a Florida lawyer after the person abruptly hiked their fees just before the arraignment
Donald Trump’s valet charged in the classified documents case will not be arraigned until early July, a magistrate judge said on Tuesday, after Walt Nauta was unable to find an attorney admitted to the Florida bar and he was unable to appear in court because of repeated flight cancellations. Donald Trump’s valet charged in the classified documents case had his arraignment on Tuesday delayed for a second time to July by a magistrate judge, after he was forced to abandon his top choice Florida lawyer over a dispute about legal fees, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Nauta was scheduled to be arraigned at federal district court in Miami on Tuesday morning after he previously could not be arraigned at the same time as Trump because he did not have a Florida-licensed lawyer at that time either. The valet, Walt Nauta, appeared alongside Trump when the former president pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges in federal district court in Miami this month but could not himself enter a plea – a necessary step to start trial preparation – because he lacked local counsel.
Nauta was not required to be at the expected arraignment in person, but his lead counsel Stanley Woodward had wanted him to meet the local counsel based in Florida before they formally retained someone from a shortlist of potential lawyers willing to represent him in the case. Two weeks later, Nauta remains without a lawyer admitted to practice in the southern district of Florida after the person at the top of the shortlist drawn up by Nauta’s defense team decided he needed to charge higher fees to represent him the night before the arraignment, the people said.
The valet was booked to travel down from New Jersey to Florida the day before the expected arraignment until stormy weather in the New Jersey area led to flight cancellations, according to two people familiar with the matter. The previously unreported dispute over fees in effect meant Nauta could not retain the person as his Florida lawyer, the people said, even though he would be paid by Trump’s political action committee Save America, which has also been paying the fees of his lead lawyer, Stanley Woodward.
Woodward entered the courthouse in Miami alone on Tuesday morning and asked the US magistrate judge Edwin Torres, who was expected to preside, to postpone the arraignment. Torres rescheduled Nauta’s arraignment to next take place on 6 July. The reason for the rate hike was not clear, but at least one Florida lawyer who had seriously considered representing Nauta decided several days ago that the reputational and legal risks of working with Trump’s co-defendant in the documents case were too great.
The extended delay in getting Nauta arraigned will probably not push back the pre-trial timetable for Trump, legal experts said, since Nauta has not been charged with violating national security laws and the complicated process governing classified information at trial would not apply to him. The last-minute scramble to find a trial lawyer has been a common theme in the classified documents case after Trump struggled to find local counsel for his arraignment and ultimately used an existing lawyer admitted to the southern district of Florida who also sponsored in a New York-based lawyer.
Nauta was charged by federal prosecutors earlier this month after he helped Trump remove boxes out of a storage room at the Mar-a-Lago club before Trump’s lawyer could search them for classified documents demanded by a grand jury subpoena, according to the indictment.The steps Trump took to have those boxes removed from the storage room, an episode now at the heart of the obstruction charge, caused Trump’s lawyer Evan Corcoran to certify a false certification to the justice department confirming that no further documents were at the property, the indictment said. But it has been made more difficult because Nauta’s team has been seeking defense lawyers who have not previously worked as prosecutors, and anyone Nauta retains would also need the blessing of Trump and his own defense team, who see no need to make a decision quickly.
Separately, according to the indictment, Nauta lied to the FBI when he allegedly said he was unaware about how boxes of classified documents were taken to Trump’s residence before Trump agreed to return 15 boxes to the National Archives in January 2022. In fact, the people said, Trump’s preference has been for delay, a strategy that has come about from the belief that if the trial can be pushed back to after the 2024 election and should he win – Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination – the case would be moot.
“When asked whether he knew where Trump’s boxes had been stored, before they were in Trump’s residence and whether they had been in a secure or locked location, Nauta falsely responded, ‘I wish, I wish I could tell you. I don’t know. I don’t – I honestly just don’t know,’” the indictment said. At the brief, 10-minute hearing, the chief magistrate judge for the court, Edwin Torres, rescheduled Nauta’s arraignment for 6 July, after Woodward said his client had been unable to find local counsel and that he was unable to attend in court because of flight cancellations.
The indictment alleged Nauta lied to the FBI because he and another Trump employee at Mar-a-Lago moved the boxes. In recognition of the fact that Nauta’s new arraignment could delay the criminal case, prosecutors asked the magistrate judge to set a new hearing date before 14 July, when all parties are due before US district court judge Aileen Cannon to set a timetable to start the discovery process.
“Nauta did in fact know that the boxes in Pine Hall had come from the storage room, as Nauta himself, with the assistance of Trump Employee 2, had moved the boxes from the storage room to Pine Hall; and Nauta had observed the boxes in and moved them to various locations,” it said. The move by Torres to delay the arraignment for a second time was unusual, given magistrate judges have the authority to assign a federal public defender or a standby counsel to represent defendants on a one-off basis so that they can enter a plea.
Nauta was also not required to attend the arraignment in person, which raised questions about the relevance of cancellations. Privately, the people said, Woodward had wanted Nauta to meet the prospective lawyers the day before but that explanation did not address the fee dispute.
Nauta was charged by federal prosecutors earlier this month after he helped Trump remove boxes out of a storage room at the Mar-a-Lago club before Trump’s lawyer could search them for classified documents demanded by a grand jury subpoena, according to the indictment.The steps Trump took to have the boxes removed from the storage room caused now-recused Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran to certify a false certification to the justice department confirming that no further documents were at the property, the indictment said.Separately, according to the indictment, Nauta lied to the FBI when he allegedly said he was unaware about how boxes of classified documents were taken to Trump’s residence before Trump agreed to return 15 boxes to the National Archives in January 2022.“When asked whether he knew where Trump’s boxes had been stored, before they were in Trump’s residence and whether they had been in a secure or locked location, Nauta falsely responded, ‘I wish, I wish I could tell you. I don’t know. I don’t – I honestly just don’t know,’” the indictment said.The indictment alleged Nauta lied to the FBI because he and another Trump employee at Mar-a-Lago moved the boxes.“Nauta did in fact know that the boxes in Pine Hall had come from the storage room, as Nauta himself, with the assistance of Trump Employee 2, had moved the boxes from the storage room to Pine Hall; and Nauta had observed the boxes in and moved them to various locations,” it said.