In a significant legal development, the federal judge overseeing special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against former President Donald Trump has once again denied requests from Trump’s legal team to dismiss the charges. According to an order filed Monday evening, Judge Aileen Cannon rejected numerous claims by Trump’s defense attorneys and his co-defendants, who argued that the 2023 indictment was technically flawed. However, she did criticize prosecutors’ description of one incident as unnecessary to the charges and agreed to strike a single paragraph from the charging document, stating it “improperly contained uncharged offense allegations.”
Smith has charged Trump with 40 counts, including the unlawful retention of national defense information, after investigators recovered hundreds of classified documents from his Florida estate. Trump and his co-defendants, aide Walt Nauta and former Mar-a-Lago employee Carlos de Oliveira, are also accused of engaging in an alleged scheme to obstruct the federal probe. All three have pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. Smith’s office declined to comment on the recent ruling, and Trump’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump, Nauta, and de Oliveira made numerous arguments to the court in their bid to dismiss the charges before going to trial. They claimed that several alleged crimes were listed under a single charge and that prosecutors failed to show Nauta and de Oliveira knew classified documents were contained in the boxes they are accused of moving. The defense also argued that the form in which the charges were written was technically insufficient.
Judge Cannon rejected these claims, stating that the language in the indictment was legally permissible. She noted that in some circumstances, the issues could be raised by the defense at trial. Although the ruling was a near-total win for Smith, the judge did criticize the style of the special counsel’s indictment, describing it as containing “nonessential allegations more akin to a narrative about the government’s theory of prosecution.” She wrote that the “speaking indictment” contained allegations and language against Trump that were “legally unnecessary” to the underlying charges. Despite this critique, she ruled that nearly all of the 60-page indictment would stand, except for a single paragraph in which prosecutors described a moment in 2021 when Trump allegedly showed an individual who did not hold a security clearance a classified map of a foreign nation.
The judge wrote that the paragraph was unnecessary and would be stricken from the indictment, as Trump is not charged with showing anyone else classified records. However, she left open the possibility that the alleged conduct could be included in any trial after proper litigation.
Her ruling aligns with comments she has made in past court hearings, where she specifically called the charging documents against Trump a “speaking indictment” and noted its length. Cannon’s order on Monday also mirrored others published in recent months, where she rejected Trump’s legal arguments but wrote critically of the special counsel and his prosecutors. In April, she agreed with Smith that the names of potential witnesses should remain redacted in publicly filed documents but scolded prosecutors for not making that particular argument sooner. Last month, Cannon criticized Smith’s team for failing to confer with the defense and described them as “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy” when she rejected their request to limit Trump’s speech about law enforcement on the case. Cannon did, however, allow the special counsel to refile his request, and she is still considering it.
A trial date in the case has yet to be set, as the judge said she is working through other pretrial matters. Cannon previously rejected other arguments brought by Trump that the charges should be dropped and has set public hearings on various motions throughout the summer months. Smith also charged Trump in Washington, D.C., with four federal counts alleging he worked to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election. The former president pleaded not guilty to those charges, and the case is presently on hold as the Supreme Court considers his claims of presidential immunity from prosecution.
In a related development, the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s classified documents case denied a motion to dismiss the charges against the former president’s co-defendant and longtime aide, Walt Nauta. Nauta’s lawyers attempted to have the charges against him thrown out by arguing that he was “selectively” and “vindictively” prosecuted by investigators—a claim that Judge Aileen Cannon considered during a hearing in May. In an order issued Saturday, Cannon denied the motion to dismiss the case, determining that Nauta failed to prove the prosecution was “motivated by a discriminatory purpose” or that others who engaged in similar conduct were not prosecuted.
Nauta, who first worked for Trump in the White House before accompanying him to Florida following Trump’s presidency, pleaded not guilty to eight counts as part of the criminal case involving Trump’s handling of classified documents. The charges include conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements. Nauta’s lawyers argued in part that he was “discriminatorily prosecuted” for invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to testify before a Grand Jury investigating the alleged retention of classified documents and obstruction of justice, but Cannon was unconvinced that Nauta’s decision not to testify led to the charges.
“Even if the Court were to accept that Defendant Nauta invoked his Fifth Amendment right, there is no evidence showing that Defendant Nauta’s exercise of his privilege against self-incrimination motivated the charges against him,” Cannon wrote. Judge Cannon is still considering a similar argument brought by Trump’s attorneys, and her order noted that her dismissal of Nauta’s motion had no bearing on Trump’s argument.
In a separate order issued on Saturday, Cannon delayed some of the deadlines in the case following Trump’s request to stay the proceedings in light of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. She ordered additional briefing about the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling ahead of a July 22 status conference in the case.
In another ruling, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied motions by two of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants to dismiss charges in the classified documents case. Trump aide Walt Nauta’s lawyers asked this month for five charges against him to be dismissed, while lawyers for Carlos De Oliveira, who was the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, requested that all charges against him be tossed out. In her filing in Florida, Cannon said De Oliveira “does not meaningfully dispute that the charging document satisfies the minimum pleading standards.”
She also noted that his lawyers can challenge prosecutors’ evidence during a trial, “where the Special Counsel will bear the entire burden of proof as to all essential elements of the obstruction offenses.” Similarly, she dismissed the motion from Nauta’s lawyers, who had argued that obstruction charges against him were unconstitutionally vague. Cannon said she was in “general agreement with the Special Counsel” that the indictment’s allegations “provide enough of a basis to deny Nauta’s request for dismissal on vagueness grounds.”
Both men had also requested bills of particulars, meaning more details about the charges against them and why they are being accused of crimes. Cannon denied those requests as well. “The Court cannot say that the Indictment as a whole lacks sufficient information to assist Nauta in preparing for trial, and the discovery provided in this case is exceedingly voluminous,” Cannon said about Nauta’s request.
Neither Nauta’s nor De Oliveira’s lawyers immediately responded to requests for comment Thursday evening. Nauta has been accused of helping Trump hide national security files from investigators, and he faces charges including conspiracy to obstruct justice and withholding a document or record. De Oliveira has been accused of trying to delete security video in Mar-a-Lago when the Justice Department sought it. He faces charges including conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements. Nauta and De Oliveira have pleaded not guilty. Trump has also pleaded not guilty in all of his criminal trials.
Source: CBS News, The Washington Post, NBC News, AP
