During a marathon day of proceedings in the Mar-a-Lago case involving classified documents, a morning hearing before the judge Aileen Kanon devolved into a shouting match between the lawyers, and the afternoon’s series of arguments led the judge to wonder whether the legal nuances of the case might be too difficult for jurors to understand.
The heated exchanges played out during a morning proceeding in Fort Pierce, Florida, scheduled for Walt Nauta, one of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants, to make arguments that special counsel Jack Smith’s team selectively and vindictively brought charges had filed against him. .
But the hearing quickly led to a lengthy dispute over an August 2022 meeting between prosecutor Jay Bratt and Nauta’s attorney, Stanley Woodward. Woodward has alleged in court filings and filings that Bratt tried to pressure him to convince Nauta to cooperate against Trump by threatening to influence a possible judicial nomination. Cannon has not issued a court ruling on Nauta’s request to dismiss the case on those grounds.
Cannon also did not rule on a motion she heard during an afternoon session Wednesday that was filed by all three defendants in the case, who argued that the indictment has technical flaws that required the indictment’s dismissal.
Cannon appeared skeptical of these arguments, but also expressed concern about a jury’s ability to understand the legal nuances in the case at a future trial.
“Real people need to decide these issues,” Cannon said.
Prosecutor says lawyer made ‘garbage argument’
Nauta claims he was criminally charged in the case in retaliation for refusing to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation into the former president’s retention of classified documents in his estate.
“I was recommended for a judgeship, there’s no question about that,” Woodward said Wednesday. “There was a folder about counsel on the table” at that meeting, he said, claiming Bratt was referring to that judge’s recommendation.
“I think the implication was that I had to travel and convince Mr. Nauta to cooperate with the investigation, and if I didn’t there would be consequences,” Woodward said.
Prosecutor David Harbach then stood up and accused Woodward of engaging in “procedural gaming” by making a “garbage argument” about the meeting.
“Mr. Woodward’s account of what happened at that meeting is a fantasy,” Harbach shouted, slamming his hand on the lectern in front of him. “It didn’t happen.”
The heated proceedings come Wednesday as the hush-money case against Trump in Manhattan nears its conclusion and a new phase of preliminary investigations begins in Florida’s prosecution of federal secret documents.
The hearing was Cannon’s first since she indefinitely postponed the start of the trial, which was scheduled to begin this week. It’s been more than a month since the judge last held a public, in-person hearing in the case — though she has conducted at least one sealed proceeding since then.
Trump is accused of taking classified national defense documents from the White House after leaving office and resisting government efforts to retrieve the materials. Trump, Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira have all pleaded not guilty.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Harbach excoriated Woodward, saying he chose not to report the alleged incident until months later and repeatedly changed his memory of the conversation.
“This is a lawyer whose accusations are basically that he was extorted,” Harbach said of Woodward, waving his arms.
Woodward sat behind the accuser with his hands folded and his head down.
The judge quickly scolded Harbach and told the attorney to “calm down.” Cannon questioned why no evidence had been gathered about what happened during the 2022 conversation, saying: “Why are those comments [about Woodward] should be made?”
“That’s not true, and I didn’t say it,” Harbach shouted back. The prosecutor said there was no recording of the conversation between Bratt and Woodward, but Smith’s team has retained all recordings of the meeting.
Woodward shot back to the lectern, said, “I’m here,” and offered to testify under oath about what he remembered from the meeting.
Nauta’s request to dismiss the case was the first of two issues before Cannon on Wednesday. An afternoon hearing will focus on the co-defendants’ argument that the indictment has technical flaws that require its dismissal.
Trump had received permission from the judge to skip Wednesday’s proceedings.
Cannon says the jury may have difficulty understanding the charges
In postponing the trial, Cannon pointed to the mountain of unresolved issues in the pretrial because no new date had been set on the calendar. Wednesday begins a series of hearings scheduled through the end of July that will push the case through some — but not all — of the preliminary investigation issues.
During the afternoon portion of arguments Wednesday, defense attorneys raised concerns about the way prosecutors structured the indictment, saying the wording for different charges within the same indictment sometimes sounded the same.
Prosecutor Jay Bratt said the charges reference several parts of the obstruction statute used to charge Trump and two of his employees. Bratt also pointed out that jurors would receive clear instructions about the charges during a trial.
Cannon said that while “it will be difficult for anyone to discover what is different in these counts,” she noted that “that will be a project later.” Cannon has not yet set a trial date in the case after indefinitely postponing it in an order earlier this month.
The Florida judge spent hours Wednesday entertaining lawyers’ theories about what they said were problems in the investigation and prosecution of former President Nauta and the third co-defendant, Carlos De Oliveira. The defense theories ranged from allegations that prosecutors tried to extort Nauta’s attorney to claims that prosecutors used inappropriate and “striking” descriptions of Mar-a-Lago in the indictment.
Cannon ultimately suggested that the three defense teams’ “potpourri of criticism” might be the one best suited for a jury to decide at an eventual trial.
Several legal issues remain unresolved, including at least five motions to dismiss the criminal case. Cannon has repeatedly suggested that several legal issues could be shelved and resolved closer to trial.
Cannon’s slow pace in the case has drawn criticism from outside legal experts, who have accused the Trump-appointed judge of playing delay tactics by the Republican Party’s presumptive White House nominee. Unless Cannon picks up her momentum significantly, it seems unlikely the charges will go before a jury before the 2024 election. If Trump wins the White House, he is expected to drop the charges against him.
Newly released files provide more details about the investigation
Until recent days, several of Trump’s major motions to attack the prosecutor were not even publicly recorded. The proceeding has become mired in disputes over what should be redacted in public documents.
On Tuesday, hundreds of pages of previously sealed lawsuits were posted publicly as part of the former president’s efforts to have the charges against him dismissed. These documents include a previously sealed March 2023 ruling from a federal judge in Washington, D.C., which found there was “sufficient” evidence that Trump committed crimes, allowing investigators to obtain information from his former attorney that would normally be protected through attorney-client privilege.
Trump is seeking to throw out that evidence, as well as evidence obtained during the FBI’s August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, from which investigators obtained many of the documents underlying several charges against Trump.
Those motions will not be heard Wednesday, and Cannon has not yet held a hearing on them.
In her order Sunday to make the filings public, Cannon took a stab at prosecutors — one of several swipes she has taken at Smith’s office. She expressed “concern” that the special counsel’s office had requested redactions of information in the newly released files after previously authorizing that information to be published in full in previous court filings.
“The Court is disappointed in these developments. The sealing and redaction rules must be applied consistently and fairly based on sufficient factual and legal evidence,” Cannon wrote. “And parties may not submit motions that undermine prior statements or positions except after full disclosure to the Court and appropriate briefing.”
This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.
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