Walt Nauta is a Navy veteran who fetched Trump’s Diet Cokes as his presidential, before joining him as a personal aide at Mar-a-Lago. He is regularly by Trump’s side. Nauta even in Trump’s motorcade to the Miami courthouse for their appearance earlier this month and accompanied him afterward to a stop at the city’s famed Cuban restaurant Versailles, where he helped usher supporters eager to take selfies with the former president.
Nauta was set to be arraigned Tuesday on charges that he helped the former president hide classified documents that the Justice Department wanted back.
But Nauta didn’t show up to court Tuesday, and his lawyer demanded a postponement.
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A lawyer for Walt Nauta told a judge Tuesday that Nauta had not yet been able to find a Florida-based attorney and was stuck in Newark, New Jersey and had been unable to fly down because of a flight cancelation amid storms in the region.
As a result, a judge pushed back the arraignment until July 6.
Walt Nauta was charged earlier this month alongside Trump in a 38-count indictment filed by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. Trump pleaded not guilty earlier this month to 37 counts related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents kept at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Nauta’s arraignment was postponed to give him time to find a Florida-based lawyer.
Even before the request for postponement, Nauta seemed unlikely to appear in person at his arraignment. He wasn’t required to be there.
Plus, Natua had already requested a postponement. Trump was arraigned on June 14, but Nauta reportedly requested a later date, allowing him more time to look for a Florida lawyer.
The indictment accuses Nauta of conspiring with Trump to conceal records that he had taken with him from the White House.
Prosecutors allege that Nauta, at the former president’s direction, moved boxes of documents bearing classification markings so that they would not be found by a Trump lawyer who was tasked with searching the home for classified records to be returned. That, prosecutors said, resulted in a false representation to the Justice Department that a “diligent search” for classified documents had been done and that all documents responsive to a subpoena had been returned.
The defense has remained more tight-lipped on the case. Nauta’s lawyer — Stanley Woodward — declined to take CNN’s questions outside the courthouse on Tuesday.
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Nauta has been charged on six counts: conspiracy, obstruction of justice, willfully retaining national defense information, and others.
Like Trump, he’s expected to plead not guilty.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department last week proposed a Dec. 11 trial date for Trump, requesting a postponement from a judge’s initial date in August.
And on Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied a Justice Department request to file under seal the names of 84 potential witnesses they want Trump to be ordered to have no contact with as the case moves forward.
She said that in her view, the Justice Department did not explain why it needed to file the list with the court or why it was necessary to seal the list from public view.
In a separate order on Monday, Cannon reportedly scheduled the case’s first pretrial conference for July 14. However, she may reschedule the conference, given all the requests for postponement.
According to court records reviewed by CNN, Cannon is set to preside over Nauta’s trial, but Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres was set to preside over Nauta’s arraignment Tuesday.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.