Walt Nauta, personal aide to former U.S. President Donald Trump who faces charges of being Trump’s co-conspirator in the alleged mishandling of classified documents, walks with Trump during a LIV Golf Pro-Am golf tournament at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, U.S. May 25, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
The Department of Justice on Wednesday ended an effort to prosecute two men in Florida for allegedly helping their former co-defendant President Donald Trump hide classified government documents from officials seeking their recovery.
The DOJ, in a court filing, asked to voluntarily dismiss an appeal that sought to revive its criminal case against the men: Trump’s valet Walt Nauta, and Carlos De Oliveira, a worker at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
“The government has conferred with counsel for Appellees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who do not object to the voluntary dismissal,” Miami U.S. Attorney Hayden O’Byrne wrote in the filing at the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
The filing comes two days after the DOJ fired officials involved in the now-terminated prosecutions of Trump by former special counsel Jack Smith.
The DOJ weeks after November’s election dropped an appeal that sought to revive criminal charges against Trump in the classified documents case because of a department policy that bars prosecutions of sitting presidents.
The department on the same day and for the same reason asked a federal judge to dismiss its criminal case against Trump in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., where he was charged with crimes in connection with his attempt to reverse his loss to former President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
The department was expected to drop its effort to prosecute Nauta and De Olivera because of Trump’s authority as president to order the DOJ to take such an action. Trump has claimed that he and his co-defendants were targeted by the DOJ under the Biden administration for political reasons.
Trump had been charged by Jack Smith in U.S. District Court in south Florida with crimes related to his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after the end of his first term in the White House in January 2021, and with obstructing the recovery of those records by government officials.
In July, District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, whom Trump nominated to the bench, dismissed the case against Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira.
Cannon in a ruling wrote that Smith’s appointment as special counsel by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The DOJ then filed an appeal at the 11th Circuit, asking that court to reverse Cannon’s decision.
The department voluntarily dismissed that appeal as it related to Trump on Nov. 25.
