Judge in Trump’s Classified Documents Case Denies Co-Defendants Access to Files

The U.S. district judge in the classified documents prosecution of former President Donald Trump ruled on Tuesday that two of the former president’s co-defendants shouldn’t be given personal access to classified materials.

Previously, special counsel Jack Smith filed court papers requesting that Judge Aileen Cannon block requests from Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, the two Trump co-defendants, to see the classified documents. His team argued that it is not necessary for Mr. Nauta, an aide to President Trump, and Mr. De Oliveira, a manager at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate, to see the materials.

Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira face charges related to their alleged hiding and mishandling of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago, located in Palm Beach, Florida.

“The Special Counsel has made a sufficient showing that Defendant Nauta and De Oliveira’s personal review of the materials produced in classified discovery would not be ’relevant and helpful’ to their defense,” she wrote.

Noting that the charges against President Trump are different, she added that “the document-related charges against Defendants Nauta and De Oliveira do not require proof that they willfully retained documents ’relating to the national defense’” and that Mr. Smith “also indicates that he does not intend to present evidence suggesting that Defendants Nauta and De Oliveira acted with an inculpatory purpose specific to them and to the 102 classified-marked documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.”

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The court is “without any reasonably concrete example of a classified document, or documents, the substance of which appear helpful to either Defendant Nauta or De Oliveira in defending against the … charges against them,” the judge continued.

Additionally, Judge Cannon wrote, “Nauta and De Oliveira fail to rebut the Special Counsel’s showing as to the subject materials’ lack of helpfulness,” noting that the two “fail to provide any examples of documents produced in classified discovery that—if made available to them for personal review—would be helpful in countering the allegation that they conspired to help Defendant Trump ‘keep classified documents he had taken with him from the White House’ and ‘hide and conceal them from a federal grand jury.’”

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Earlier this month, the former president’s lawyers urged Judge Cannon to dismiss the classified documents case because presidential immunity protects him from prosecution, as he submitted similar arguments in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year.

President Trump’s lawyers wrote that the classified documents charges turn on his alleged decision to designate the papers as “personal” records under the Presidential Records Act, and argued that he cannot be prosecuted since that was an “official act” made while he was still in the White House.

The former president has denied wrongdoing in all four of the criminal cases he is facing, and has cast himself as the victim of a politically motivated justice system as he seeks to reclaim to the White House in November. Similarly, Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira have also pleaded not guilty.

And in mid-February, the former president appeared at a Florida court for a closed-door hearing to discuss the federal procedures for handling classified evidence in the trial, which is currently scheduled to begin on May 20.

“Defense counsel shall be prepared to discuss their defense theories of the case, in detail, and how any classified information might be relevant or helpful to the defense,” she wrote when scheduling the hearing.

In addition to the Florida case, President Trump faces charges in Atlanta and Washington related to his efforts after the 2020 presidential election. He’s also charged in state court in New York in connection with payments during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.