DOJ drops criminal proceedings against Donald Trump co-defendants in classified records case

Walt Nauta watches as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2023, Washington. Image via AP/Ben Curtis.

The Justice Department on Wednesday abandoned all criminal proceedings against the two co-defendants of President Donald Trump in the Florida classified documents case, wiping out any legal peril the pair could have faced.

Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira were charged with conspiring with Trump to obstruct an FBI investigation into the hoarding of classified documents that the Republican took with him when he left the White House after his first term.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case, in July, saying that the prosecutor who brought it, special counsel Jack Smith, had been illegally appointed by the Justice Department. Smith’s team ended its case against Trump after his November election win, citing longstanding department policy that says sitting Presidents cannot be indicted.

But its appeal of the dismissal of charges against Nauta and De Olivera remained pending until Wednesday. That’s when prosecutors informed the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it had withdrawn the appeal, formally ending the case.

“The United States of America moves to voluntarily dismiss its appeal with prejudice,” prosecutors wrote. “The government has conferred with counsel for Appellees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who do not object to the voluntary dismissal.”

The Justice Department had previously committed to not making public Smith’s report on the classified documents investigation as long as proceedings remained ongoing against Nauta and De Oliveira. But with the appeal now dismissed, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked acting Attorney General James McHenry to make the report available to them, saying they needed access to evaluate the document as they prepare to take up the nomination of Kash Patel to be FBI Director.

Patel testified before the grand jury in that investigation in 2022 after being granted immunity.

Trump’s Justice Department is widely expected to keep the report permanently under wraps.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.