Trump aide set for third shot at arraignment in Miami. If he can find a local attorney
MIAMI — There are thousands of criminal defense lawyers in South Florida.
But a day before a third scheduled hearing in Miami federal court, an aide to Donald Trump appears still to be without one to represent him on charges of conspiring with the former president to obstruct the U.S. government’s efforts to retrieve classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, according to court records.
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Walt Nauta, a Navy veteran who served as a Trump aide in the White House and now works for him as his personal valet, is scheduled yet again for a formal initial arraignment during a court hearing Thursday.
But Nauta, 40, can’t enter his plea, as Trump did on June 13, without a permanent lawyer with credentials to practice in federal court in South Florida. He didn’t have one for the first hearing and missed the second because of bad weather. And, according to court filings, as of Wednesday he had either not picked one or found an attorney willing to represent him in the high-profile and politically divisive criminal case.
His Washington, D.C., defense attorney, Stanley Woodward, told a magistrate judge last week that he would try to resolve the matter by this week, but so far no local attorney’s name has appeared on the case docket. Woodward, who has represented Nauta during the Trump documents probe led by the Justice Department’s special counsel, did not return messages inquiring about his client’s choice for a local lawyer.
Veteran South Florida defense attorneys said there could be any number of reasons for Nauta’s delay in selecting a local lawyer.
