An attorney for a co-defendant in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case claimed that a top Department of Justice (DOJ) official attempted to pressure him “to cooperate” or potentially lose a recommendation to become a judge, prompting a DOJ prosecutor to call his claims a “fantasy.”
The incident prompted the federal judge in the case, Judge Aileen Cannon, to tell the prosecutor to “calm down.”
Stanley Woodward, the lawyer for Walt Nauta, previously filed court papers claiming that DOJ official Jay Bratt in an August 2022 meeting tried to pressure him into convincing Mr. Nauta, a valet for the former president, into cooperating by threatening to put pressure on his judgeship nomination. During a court hearing on May 22, Mr. Woodward again brought up that allegation.
“I had been recommended for a judgeship, that’s beyond dispute,” Mr. Woodward said on May 22, according to reporters in the federal courthouse in Florida. “There was a folder about defense counsel on the table.”
He said Mr. Bratt had spoken about the judgeship recommendation during the 2022 meeting.
“I think the implication was that I was to travel and convince Mr. Nauta to cooperate with the investigation, and if I didn’t [do] that, there would be consequences,” Mr. Woodward claimed.
DOJ prosecutor David Harbach then claimed that Mr. Woodward was engaging in “procedural gamesmanship” with his claims about the 2022 meeting, saying that “Mr. Woodward’s story of what happened at that meeting is a fantasy.”
According to reporters, Mr. Harbach was shouting and then banged his hand on a lectern, saying that “it did not happen.”
In response, Judge Cannon told the federal prosecutor to remain calm.
“Mr. Harbach, I’m just going to ask that you calm down,” she said, according to court reporters.
In court papers that were unsealed several weeks ago, Mr. Woodward alleged that he was taken to a conference room with Mr. Bratt, who had a “folder containing information about Mr. Woodward.”
“Mr. Bratt thereupon told Mr. Woodward he didn’t consider him to be a ‘Trump lawyer,’ and he further said that he was aware that Mr. Woodward had been recommended to President Biden for an appointment to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia,” the court filing reads.
He then told Mr. Woodward that he “wouldn’t want you to do anything to mess that up,” the papers state.
The hearing was conducted on whether Judge Cannon should dismiss the charges against President Trump, Mr. Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago manager Carlos De Oliveira. It was the first since the judge earlier this month indefinitely postponed the start of the trial because of a myriad of procedural issues, as well as a number of different motions.
President Trump was charged by special counsel Jack Smith’s team with allegedly taking classified documents from the White House after he left office in 2021 and for obstructing the federal government’s attempts to get them back. President Trump, Mr. Nauta, and Mr. De Oliveira have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
During the hearing on May 22, Mr. Woodward said he believed that his client was only being prosecuted because he refused to testify against President Trump and asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by refusing to testify a second time before a grand jury.
“There was a campaign to get Mr. Nauta to cooperate in the first federal prosecution of a former president of the United States and when he refused, they prosecuted him,” Mr. Woodward told the judge. “That’s a violation of his constitutional rights.”
But Mr. Harbach, who is a member of Mr. Smith’s team, said the argument is “garbage,” saying it is common for defendants to be offered better treatment if they cooperate and that a subsequent indictment does not qualify as a vindictive prosecution.
“There is not a single bit of evidence of animus toward Mr. Nauta,” he said.
It comes just a few days after Judge Cannon issued an order allowing a number of materials to be made public before she criticized federal prosecutors for their activity, saying she has a “concern” about how they sought redactions.
The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment regarding Mr. Woodward’s claims by press time.
