‘Garbage argument’: Hearing in Trump’s classified docs case gets heated
FORT PIERCE, Florida — The judge in the Donald Trump classified documents case reprimanded a prosecutor Wednesday during a tense hearing over a Trump co-defendant’s accusation of prosecutorial misconduct.
“I’m going to have to ask that you calm down,” Judge Aileen Cannon told prosecutor David Harbach, a member of special counsel Jack Smith’s team.
The reprimand came after Harbach became agitated when Cannon asked him whether prosecutors had kept evidence of an August 2022 meeting with defense lawyer Stanley Woodward.
Harbach argued in court Wednesday that Woodward was invoking that meeting as part of a “garbage argument” in a bid to get the criminal charges against his client, Walt Nauta, dismissed.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, did not rule on the dismissal bid. It was her first public hearing in the case since she indefinitely postponed the trial date, which had initially been set for May 20.
Nauta, who was Trump’s White House valet and still works for him at Mar-a-Lago, is charged with helping Trump obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve classified documents at the Palm Beach resort. Trump himself is facing dozens of felony charges for hoarding the documents, and one other defendant, property manager Carlos De Oliveira, is also charged in the case.
Woodward has contended in court papers that Nauta has been subject to “selective and vindictive prosecution.” He has several arguments to support the claim, but the most explosive stems from the 2022 meeting between Woodward and prosecutor Jay Bratt. Woodward, who had been under consideration to be appointed to a judgeship by President Joe Biden, claims that Bratt implied at that meeting that Woodward would not get a judgeship unless his client, Nauta, cooperated in the documents investigation.
The special counsel’s team has denied Woodward’s claim, and at Wednesday’s hearing, Harbach called Woodward’s version of the meeting a “fantasy” that “did not happen.”
Bratt himself was sitting in the courtroom as lawyers argued over what happened at the meeting, but he did not address the court on the subject.
Trump was excused from attending the hearing. He’s currently on trial in New York on charges stemming from a hush money payment to a porn star. Closing arguments are scheduled for Tuesday and a verdict could come as soon as next week.
In addition to the dispute over Woodward’s meeting with Bratt, Woodward accused the special counsel’s team of singling out Nauta for far worse treatment than other people who were interviewed in the documents case or in similar circumstances.
In response, Harbach listed a slew of accusations against Nauta, saying he lied to investigators, lied to the grand jury, moved boxes and deleted video. No one had done anything close to what Nauta did, he said.
“Show me someone who has done all that and I’ll show you someone indicted,” he said.
Cannon also heard arguments Wednesday on a separate bid to dismiss certain charges because of technical issues involving how certain charges seem similar to each other and how the defendants are grouped together. Again, she didn’t rule, saying only that she would take the arguments “under advisement.”
The judge again became irritated with Harbach when he whispered to other members of the prosecution team while a defense lawyer was speaking. Cannon asked him to keep his voice down.
But the prosecution wasn’t the only side to draw Cannon’s ire Wednesday. At one point, she told Woodward to “slow down,” and later she became impatient with him when he was unable to answer a line of questioning.
“You should have been prepared to address this,” she said.
Woodward later apologized for having been caught “flat footed.”
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.