United States: Lawyers for two co-defendants of ex-President Trump in the classified documents case will file a motion to dismiss on Friday before a judge, their lawyers say.
Charges and Pleas
Walt Nauta, the former valet to Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, the manager of the Mar-a-Lago property, were both charged with conspiring with Trump to obstruct an FBI investigation into the hoarding of sensitive documents at the residence in Palm Beach of the ex-president. All three have also pleaded not guilty, as reported by the Associated Press.
Defense Arguments
The prosecution team for Nauta and De Oliveira also plans to file motions seeking dismissal of the charges they face. This is contrary to the motion filed by Jack Smith, the special counsel who charged them and Trump. It is unknown when the judge will decide on this.
While the two Trump aides have not been indicted for illegally storing documents but rather for aiding the obstruction of the government efforts of retrieving them.
Prosecutors allege that Nauta, in early 2022, removed loads of boxes from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago in trying to prevent their return into the hands of the authorities and that he and de Oliveira colluded with Trump to attempt to delete surveillance video showing the movement of the boxes and which had been collected by the FBI.
The men’s attorneys defended them, saying that there is no claim that they knew that the boxes contained the government files.
“The Superseding Indictment does not allege that Mr. De Oliveira ever saw a classified document. It does not allege that Mr. De Oliveira was aware of the presence of any classified documents in the boxes that he moved,” lawyers for De Oliveira wrote in court filings.
They also insisted they had no proof of any investigations going on by the government that he was aware of as he supervised the boxes inside the storage unit, as reported by the Associated Press.
Legal Maneuvering
Presidential candidate Trump and Republicans separately have attempted many times to dismiss charges against him using legal motions. Cannon rejected two motions that were argued earlier this month – the first asserting that the heart of the Act was constitutional, the other cited the Presidential Records Act to say for classified documents to be Trump’s personal property upon leaving the White House after the 2020 election loss which saw Democrat Joe Biden unseated him.