There is a Fight at the Hearing for Classified Papers as Trump and His Supporters Try to Get the Charges Dropped

A hearing in the case of classified papers against Donald Trump turned into a scuffle as lawyers argued over claims of a threat against a defense attorney.

Walt Nauta, Mr. Trump’s co-defendant and valet, asked the judge in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Wednesday morning to throw out the charges against him. He said that special counsel Jack Smith’s office had unfairly and randomly charged him with crimes.

Judge Aileen Cannon, who was picked by Mr. Trump, will likely make a decision later.

But the hearing quickly turned into chaos because prosecutor Jay Bratt and Mr. Nauta’s defense lawyer Stanley Woodward couldn’t agree on where to meet in August 2022.

In court and in legal papers, Mr. Woodward said that Mr. Bratt had tried to get Mr. Nauta to work with prosecutors against Mr. Trump by threatening to hurt his lawyer’s chances of getting a judgeship. This happened before the charges were filed.

Some people say that Mr. Nauta was charged because he didn’t help the Department of Justice with its investigation into Mr. Trump’s alleged misuse of classified papers.

“There’s no question that I was recommended for a judgeship,” Mr. Woodward told CNN on Wednesday.

He said, “There was a folder about defense counsel on the table” during the meeting and that Mr. Bratt brought up the judgeship. “I believe the implication was that I needed to go to Mr. Nauta’s house and persuade him to help with the investigation. If I failed to do that, there would be consequences.”

David Harbach, the prosecutor, strongly rejected the charges.

He hit the podium and said, “Mr. Woodward’s story about what happened at that meeting is a lie.” “It didn’t happen.”

“This lawyer’s claims are basically that he is being extorted,” he said while moving his arms. Judge Cannon then told him to “calm down.”

Judge Cannon led two separate meetings in the case on Wednesday. These were based on two different motions, one of which asked the charges in the federal classified documents case to be dropped.

The first hearing was for Mr. Nauta, and the second was for Mr. Trump, who said that the charge has technical flaws and should be thrown out.

This is the second time that Trump’s lawyers have asked the court to drop the charges against him in the classified papers case. So far, they have all failed.

Judge Cannon, on the other hand, has already put off Mr. Trump’s trial forever.

The trial was supposed to start this week, but on May 7, Judge Cannon put it off indefinitely. She said that the planned start date of May 20 didn’t work because there were still a lot of pre-trial motions to be heard.

Since the case has been put off, it’s not likely to be tried before the election. If Mr. Trump wins, he’ll probably try to get all federal charges against him dropped.

In June, Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he kept secret information about national defense without permission, that he helped plan to stop the investigation, and that he lied.

Prosecutors say he kept secret documents in parts of his Mar-a-Lago home that weren’t locked up and tried to stop police from getting them back. There were hidden papers from the CIA, the Pentagon, and the National Security Agency in the files.

Mr. Trump is currently on trial in New York for lying about business records related to paying an adult film star hush money. He did not show up to the hearing on Wednesday.

He is also being sued in Washington, DC, and Georgia for trying to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Vice President Joe Biden.