Trump's aide Walt Nauta set to face U.S. charges in documents case

[June 27, 2023]  By Jacqueline Thomsen

MIAMI (Reuters) - Donald Trump's aide Walt Nauta is due to face federal criminal charges in a Miami court on Tuesday, accused of helping the former U.S. president hide national security documents from investigators after Trump left the White House.

Nauta is scheduled to be arraigned at 9:45 a.m. ET (1345 GMT) before Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres. The proceeding was delayed when Trump himself pleaded not guilty to charges on June 13 because Nauta did not have a lawyer admitted to practice at the Florida court.

Federal court records did not make clear whether Nauta had since retained a Florida lawyer and he could not be reached for comment. It was unclear if Nauta would be present in court on Tuesday.

Nauta, who worked for Trump as a White House valet and has continued to serve as an aide since Trump left office in January 2021, 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.

Walt Nauta, aide of former U.S. President Trump, appears on classified document charges after a federal indictment at Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. United States Courthouse, in Miami, Florida, U.S., June 13, 2023 in a courtroom sketch. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg/File Photo

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 Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

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