Valet Walt Nauta hands former President Donald Trump an umbrella before he speaks at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023, in Arlington, Va., after facing a judge on federal conspiracy charges that allege he conspired to subvert the 2020 election. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday asked the judge overseeing the Mar-a-Lago documents case to ignore a series of “false factual allegations and meritless legal arguments” recently put forward by former President Donald Trump’s valet Waltine “Walt” Nauta.
Nauta faces charges of conspiracy to obstruct, making false statements to the FBI, and withholding documents — connected to an alleged scheme to delete Mar-a-Lago camera footage and conceal boxes of classified documents from a grand jury. In reply briefs, he argued the indictment should be thrown out because he was singled out via vindictive prosecution and impermissibly retaliated against because he declined to testify in front of a grand jury.
In late March, Nauta alleged he was being prosecuted in part due to government “animus” toward him and had been vindictively charged because of his refusal to cooperate with federal investigators. Days later, Smith fired back, calling Nauta’s claims “meritless,” “flat-out false” and “deeply flawed,” and, in any event, simply raised far too late.
The back-and-forth continued two weeks later with Nauta’s reply to the government’s arguments. Now, once again, the special counsel is pointing out the sluggish pace and reiterating earlier arguments.
In the Thursday filing — and using substantially similar language to last month’s brief — Smith blasted the defendant for waiting so late to make “numerous false factual allegations and meritless legal arguments” on new “selective and vindictive prosecution” theories.
The government, while pointing to the ever-dragging timelines in the case, says Nauta has, however, not actually said anything new.
“Nauta waited two weeks to file a five-page response that informs the Court and the Government that he does not oppose the Government’s request for a surreply,” the government’s motion goes on. “Nauta concedes that his vindictive and selective prosecution motion did not mention the (false) factual allegations lodged in his reply brief. Nor does he dispute that he could have raised these allegations and arguments in his vindictive and selective prosecution motion — to the contrary, he suggests that it was appropriate to leave those allegations and arguments out of his motion and instead include them in his reply for the first time because he had surfaced those allegations months earlier in unrelated filings with the Court.”
The defendant, for his part, says the court has been aware, for nearly eight months, that he would likely offer various arguments in support of the vindictive and selective prosecution defense — essentially arguing the government is more or less feigning indignation about allegedly late-coming defense theories.
“Just days after the return of a Superseding Indictment as against Mr. Nauta and his codefendants, briefing was ordered that would serve as a prelude to Mr. Nauta’s eventual motion to dismiss,” Nauta’s attorneys wrote in their Wednesday reply. “Accordingly, any claim by the SCO that it was unaware of Mr. Nauta’s position with respect to its prosecution of him borders on incredulous.”
Smith says the defense’s efforts are redolent of intentional delay.
“Permitting Nauta to raise these allegations and arguments for the first time in his reply without good cause enables him to needlessly drag out the litigation of his pretrial motions — which has already spanned three months — and unduly delay the trial in this case,” the special counsel’s latest filing argues. “By raising new factual allegations and legal arguments in his reply brief, forcing the Government to seek leave to file a surreply, and then waiting two weeks to file a response to the Government’s motion that merely informs the Court and the Government that he does not oppose a surreply, Nauta has effectively leveraged the Local Rules to extend by several weeks the briefing over his vindictive and selective prosecution motion.”
Smith also takes issue with discovery requests Nauta recently made to a court in Washington, D.C., related to the selective and vindictive prosecution theory — saying the defense could have made those requests “months ago” but “paved the way to further prolong the litigation.”
The special counsel wants U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to strike Nauta’s “new factual allegations and arguments” on those theories.
And, Smith insists, time continues to be of the essence.
“To ensure that these dilatory tactics do not persist and reoccur, the Court should disregard the new allegations and arguments in Nauta’s reply and deny his vindictive and selective prosecution motion on the papers,” the government’s motion concludes. “Alternatively, the Court should grant the Government’s unopposed motion for leave to file a surreply.”
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