If a defense lawyer’s hiring is delayed, is justice impaired?
As of Friday, there was still no word that a South Florida criminal defense lawyer with federal court credentials had been retained to help represent Waltine Nauta, former White House valet, and now personal aide and co-defendant of Donald J. Trump in the former President’s classified documents case.
Under local court rules, Nauta, 40, needs a Florida Bar member who practices in the Southern District of Florida to represent him.
The absence of such an attorney has prevented Nauta from being formally arraigned in the case. On two occasions, including on June 13 when Trump entered his not guilty plea in response to the 37-count indictment against him, Nauta has been unable to enter a plea.
Last Tuesday, at a second arraignment hearing in Miami, Nauta’s current attorney, Stanley Woodward Jr. of Washington, D.C., informed Chief U.S. Magistrate Edwin Torres that a local lawyer had yet to be hired. Moreover, Nauta failed to appear in Torres’ courtroom as scheduled last Tuesday because his flight from Newark, N.J., had been canceled.
“Mr. Nauta takes very seriously the charges that he is facing,” Woodward told the judge, who agreed there was “good cause” for missing the hearing. But Torres urged the defense to have a lawyer in place by next Thursday, July 6.
An expanding case?
In the meantime, national media reports emerged last week suggesting that the case against Trump could grow bigger and more complicated. The New York Times and CNN reported that the grand jury in Miami that handed up the indictment June 8 is continuing to hear testimony. The Independent newspaper of the United Kingdom, citing unnamed sources, reported that as many as 45 charges could be added to the case through a superseding indictment.
Combine those potential events with a tentative Aug. 15 trial date recently ordered by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, and it would appear that few criminal defense lawyers would be interested in joining a rather thinly staffed defense team. Conversely, the Justice Department has assigned five veteran attorneys from Washington and Miami to spearhead the prosecution led by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
But Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, believes a defense of Nauta is not as daunting as one might think. And he suggested it would not be advantageous to seek to have the valet tried separately from Trump.
“If I were representing Nauta, I would not want a severance,” he said. “First, if the jury has even one Trump supporter, I would try to tie Nauta very closely to Trump. Second, for the non-Trump supporters on the jury, I would want to tie Nauta even closer to Trump and explain that Nauta was a just dupe who had to do what Trump said because otherwise (Nauta) would have lost his job. Third, for both types of jurors, I would argue that Nauta had no idea what was going on and was just following his boss’ orders.
“I think most jurors will understand and appreciate that when your boss tells you to do something, you do it,” Jarvis added, “especially if your boss is the former (and possibly future) President of the United States.”
As for the prospect of the grand jury filing more charges against Trump or adding defendants to the case, he said that would be to Nauta’s advantage.
“I’d want the grand jury to keep indicting people,” Jarvis said, “because every new defendant takes some of the heat off of Nauta.”
The valet, a former U.S. Navy cook described in the indictment as a “body man” for Trump while he was in the White House, is now employed as a personal aide to the former President. He is charged in only six of the indictments’ 37 counts. They include a conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheme to conceal and making false statements and representations.
Richard Serafini, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Fort Lauderdale, said an attempt to try Nauta separately from Trump “is probably a good move.” But he doubts that the judge would grant such a motion.
“I think the likelihood of getting it is very remote because what Nauta is charged with is tied up very closely with what Trump is charged with,” he said.
During the Trump arraignment in early June, U.S. Magistrate Jonathan Goodman ordered the two co-defendants not to communicate with each other about the case. Yet Nauta remains in the employ of Trump, and last week was in New Jersey, where the former President is spending the summer at his golf resort in Bedminster.
As the July 4 holiday weekend approached, members of the South Florida legal community said privately that the search for a lawyer was continuing and that interviews were being conducted.
Time is running short. At the aborted arraignment hearing last week, Judge Torres surmised that Wednesday likely would be the latest for the new attorney to file a notice of his or her appearance as the new date arraignment is scheduled for the next day.