US drops classified documents case against Trump associates

By Andrew Goudsward

U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday moved to end the criminal case against two associates of President Donald Trump for allegedly helping to obstruct a probe into Trump's mishandling of classified documents, a court filing showed.

The pair, Trump's personal valet Walt Nauta and property manager Carlos De Oliveira, did not object to the prosecutor's decision, according to the filing.

The move would end the final remaining portion of the two prosecutions of Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who resigned from the Justice Department earlier this month ahead of Trump's return to the presidency. It still must be approved by a federal appeals court.

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"Carlos should never have been charged in this case in the first place, and I have zero doubt that he would have been acquitted at trial," John Irving, a lawyer for De Oliveira, said in a statement. "It’s nice to see the Justice Department using better judgment these days."

A lawyer for Nauta, Richard Klugh, told Reuters the decision was "absolutely the right thing."

Smith dropped both cases accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified documents and attempting to subvert the results of the 2020 election after Trump's November election win, citing long-standing department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.

But prosecutors previously indicated they would continue their case against Nauta and De Oliveira, who had been charged alongside Trump in the documents case.

Both pleaded not guilty to charges accusing them of helping Trump to obstruct the U.S. government's efforts to retrieve classified material at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, dismissed the charges against Trump and his co-defendants last year, ruling that Smith had been improperly appointed as special counsel.

Wednesday's move will likely leave that ruling in place. Prosecutors had been appealing the decision, arguing it conflicted with decades of prior court rulings.

The Justice Department, in the final days of President Joe Biden's administration, opted not to publicly release a portion of Smith's final report on the documents case out of concern it would interfere with the case against Nauta and De Oliveira.

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Justice Department leaders under Trump have described Smith's cases as an abuse of the criminal justice system. Trump's acting attorney general on Monday fired more than a dozen lawyers who had worked on the investigation.

Separately, the Justice Department on Wednesday also sought to drop a case against former Republican Representative Jeff Fortenberry, who was awaiting trial in Washington on charges he made false statements to the FBI.