Walt Nauta, left, takes a phone from Former President Donald Trump during the LIV Golf Pro-Am at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, May 25, 2023, in Sterling, Va. When Trump appears in federal court in Miami, he will likely be joined on the witness stand by a man well-practiced in standing by his side: Nauta, his valet turned alleged co-conspirator. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
After spurring on at least one government witness to reveal his identity and then reversing herself in the face of an appellate threat from special counsel Jack Smith, the judge in the Mar-a-Lago case has ordered Donald Trump’s valet and co-defendant to file a redacted version of his June 2022 grand jury transcript.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on April 9 said that the special counsel’s redaction requests were “sweeping in nature” but that the prosecution’s representations were “adequate” enough to convince her “at least at this juncture” not to out government witnesses. Three days later, the Special Counsel’s Office and attorneys for Trump’s co-defendants, valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, faced off in court for just over two hours “on the need for continued sealing of certain grand jury materials.”
On Thursday, Cannon advised both sides to adhere to the “instructions” she gave during the hearing, which in Nauta’s case meant filing a redacted version of his June 21, 2022, grand jury transcript, from before he was identified as a “target.” Nauta has claimed that prosecutors retaliated against him because he declined to testify before a grand jury thereafter, a contention the special counsel called “meritless” and “deeply flawed.”
More Law&Crime coverage: Valet co-defendant misled Trump about going on a jog before awkward interview with FBI on Mar-a-Lago, transcript reveals
The judge ordered Nauta to file his grand jury transcript, “on or before April 24, 2024,” with government witness names “anonymized,” as she explained in her decision to reverse herself.
“Defendant Nauta shall: a. Redact from the grand jury transcript (a) names of potential government witnesses and ancillary names, replacing those names as applicable with the anonymized labels provided in the Index [ECF No. 454-1 (sealed)], and (b) any personal identifying information [see ECF No. 438 p. 16]; and b. Publicly file the grand jury transcript with the redactions,” the order said.
The judge also gave Jack Smith some homework, due by April 26 and, again, to be completed in accord with the instructions she gave at the hearing last Friday. Cannon ordered the special counsel to submit a sealed “status report on the landscape of grand jury materials and proceedings implicated in this case.”
The status report, the judge said, “shall clearly identify” grand jury materials that have made their way into discovery and in defense motions to dismiss, and discuss “[p]ending petitions in any other district for authorization to use or disclose grand jury materials in this proceeding.”
Cannon further ordered Smith’s report to say whether there is a “need” under Rule 6(e) for “continued sealing of grand jury materials” that the defense is using to buttress its pretrial motions and to reveal “[a]ny orders” permitting Smith to publicly “quote from” Nauta’s transcript.
Read the order here.
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