Trump's aide Walt Nauta again delays plea in federal documents case
By Jacqueline Thomsen
MIAMI (Reuters) -A lawyer for Donald Trump aide Walt Nauta told a federal judge on Tuesday that he could not yet enter a plea in a case that accuses him of helping the former president hide national security documents because he still does not have local counsel.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres postponed Nauta's arraignment in the case for a second time, to July 6, and warned Nauta's attorney that he needed to quickly find a lawyer who is licensed to practice in Florida, where the case is being tried.
"You need to really try to make it your drop-dead deadline to get somebody here," Torres told Stanley Woodward, who is representing Nauta in the case but is not admitted to practice in south Florida federal courts.
Nauta faces charges of helping Trump hide the documents from investigators after the former president left the White House in 2021. He was not in court on Tuesday as his flight from Newark was delayed due to weather, Woodward told the court.
Nauta initially appeared in the Miami courtroom alongside Trump on June 13. Trump pleaded not guilty, and Nauta did not enter a plea at that time due to lack of local counsel.
Nauta worked for Trump as a White House valet and has served as an aide since Trump left office. He faces six counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice, false statements, and withholding and concealing documents.
He was indicted alongside Trump on June 8.
Trump is the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges, both the federal charges of illegally retaining top-secret government documents and New York charges over hush money payments to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Trump has pleaded not guilty both to the federal charges, which also include conspiracy to obstruct justice, and the New York charges.
Prosecutors said Nauta moved boxes that contained classified documents so a lawyer for Trump could not find them and hand them over to federal investigators. They said that during a voluntary interview Nauta lied to federal agents about not knowing about the boxes being moved.
Nauta and Trump are allowed to be in contact, but cannot discuss the facts of the case except through their attorneys.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who last year ruled for the former president in a civil lawsuit filed over the seizure of documents from his Mar-a-Lago resort, last week scheduled Trump's trial for Aug. 14.
Prosecutors with U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith on Friday asked Cannon to delay the trial until Dec. 11.
Cannon on Monday also set a July 14 hearing tied to how classified information in the case will be handled. Legal experts have said the complexities surrounding the use of highly classified documents as evidence are likely to delay Trump's trial.
(Reporting by Jacqueline Thomsen; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Scott Malone and Howard Goller)
