The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump's classified documents case on Saturday rejected an attempt by one of Trump's co-defendants to dismiss the charges he faces, arguing that the former president was the victim of a retaliatory prosecution by the government.
Co-defendant Walt Nauta, a personal aide to Trump, had accused prosecutors in Special Counsel Jack Smith's office of wrongfully indicting him because he refused to cooperate with prosecutors' efforts to build a case against Trump by testifying against him before a grand jury.
Mr Nauta's lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., also alleged that at a Justice Department meeting two years ago, prosecutors threatened to block his client's bid for a judgeship if he did not persuade his client to turn against Mr Trump.
But in an order issued Saturday night, Judge Eileen M. Cannon rejected those arguments, ruling that despite Nauta's refusal to testify against Trump, “there is no evidence that the charges were brought to punish him for doing so.”
Judge Cannon did not go into the details of Woodward's claim that prosecutors tried to intimidate Nauta to get his cooperation, but he denied Woodward's retaliatory prosecution motion because he argued the government was biased against him, not against his client, as required by law.
The indictment in the documents case, filed last June in U.S. District Court in Fort Pierce, Florida, alleges that Nauta conspired with Trump to conceal from the government several boxes of classified materials that the former president took from the White House when he left office and took to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida.
Prosecutors said Nauta, who worked for Trump during his presidency, also participated in a plot to destroy security camera footage that showed him and another Mar-a-Lago employee, Carlos de Oliveira, moving boxes. They also were charged with lying to investigators working on the case.
Mr. Woodward has alleged that one of Mr. Smith's top aides, Jay I. Blatt, pressured him to cooperate with Mr. Nauta during a Justice Department meeting — a deeply personal issue in the case that prosecutors vehemently deny.
At a hearing in Fort Pierce in May, Blatt's colleague, David Harbach, told Judge Cannon that the story was a complete fabrication.
“The story of what happened at that meeting is fantasy,” Harbach said. “It never happened.”
In his order, Judge Cannon appeared to seek a middle ground, saying he “did not infer any prosecutorial misconduct or doubt Mr. Woodward's statements that he conveyed his recollection honestly.”
She also noted that the Justice Department's internal watchdog, the Office of Professional Ethics, is investigating Woodward's allegations but has “paused its investigation until this case is completed.”
Trump filed a retaliatory complaint against Smith and his team, accusing them of prosecuting the case as part of a partisan effort to undermine his presidential campaign. The complaint also accused the government of unfairly targeting Trump while other public figures found to have possessed classified documents, including President Biden, have not been indicted.
Judge Cannon has not yet ruled on Trump's motion, but noted in his order Saturday that his decision to dismiss Nauta's motion “should not be construed as commenting on the merits of the former President's claims.”
The judge has been slowly considering a series of motions to dismiss the lawsuit filed by lawyers for Trump and two of his co-defendants.
Earlier this week, Trump's lawyers asked her for permission to file an additional legal brief on one of those claims, arguing that Trump enjoys immunity from prosecution following a landmark Supreme Court decision giving him broad protection from criminal prosecution stemming from actions he took in the course of his official duties as president.
