Trump and valet plead not guilty to new charges in classified documents case
Donald Trump and his valet pleaded not guilty on Thursday to an expanded set of charges stemming from the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, after special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment in the case last month.
Trump’s two codefendants in the case appeared in court in Ft Pierce, Florida, although the former US president himself was not in attendance as his legal team submitted a plea of not guilty.
Walt Nauta, Trump’s valet, did appear in person at the Thursday hearing to plead not guilty to the expanded set of charges he now faces. Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, was expected to enter a plea as well but was unable to do so because he has still not retained a local attorney.
His arraignment was rescheduled for next week.
The hearing came two weeks after Smith filed his superseding indictment adding De Oliveira as a codefendant in the case and outlining further charges against Trump and Nauta.
De Oliveira faces four federal criminal charges, including making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice. Smith’s superseding indictment alleges that Trump engaged in a scheme with Nauta and De Oliveira to wipe a server containing Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage that was subpoenaed by prosecutors and showed boxes of classified documents being removed from the storage room.
Trump had already indicated he would plead not guilty to the expanded set of charges after the former president’s legal team submitted a court filing waiving his right to appear at the arraignment in person.
“I have received a copy of the Indictment and the plea is NOT GUILTY to the charged offense(s),” the filing read.
At his initial arraignment in June, Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 federal counts, including 31 violations of the Espionage Act, over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021.
According to Smith’s indictment, Trump intentionally withheld dozens of classified documents from federal officials even after a subpoena was issued to recover the materials from Mar-a-Lago. Some of those documents included information on the US’s nuclear programs, the military’s vulnerabilities and the White House’s plans for retaliation in the event of an attack.
The former president appears to have been aware of the illegality of retaining the documents, as recordings obtained by the special counsel show Trump acknowledging he could no longer declassify information after leaving office.
The judge overseeing the case, US district court judge Aileen Cannon, has set a trial date of May 2024.
On Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers filed a motion asking Cannon to approve the re-establishment of an ultrasecure facility at Mar-a-Lago to allow the former president to review classified documents produced to him in discovery. To justify the extraordinary request, Trump’s lawyers claimed his schedule and security requirements made it impossible for him to make regular trips to a sensitive compartmented information facility, often called a “Scif”, at a courthouse.
As Cannon weighs that request, Trump’s other legal woes are mounting. Last week, Trump pleaded not guilty to four federal charges over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump may soon face more charges related to his election subversion efforts in Georgia, where Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis is expected to present her evidence to a grand jury next week. Trump has already pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in an unrelated case concerning a hush-money scheme during the 2016 presidential election.
With a fourth indictment on the horizon, Trump has continued to criticize the prosecutors leading the cases against him, which he has dismissed as “witch-hunts”. In an interview with Newsmax on Wednesday, Trump attacked Smith as a “deranged human being” and mocked Willis as “not a capable woman”.