Gimlet-eyed conservatives have noted a whole raft of things that are wrong with the Trump indictment, including not only failed legal points but also other dirty tricks. These include the DOJ’s leaks and its showing photos of all the boxes that Trump had stored at Mar-a-Lago, even though only a few documents lie at the heart of this legally and factually dishonest case. It turns out that the DOJ has also threatened a defendant’s lawyer to turn him against his client.
Before I dive too deep into this nugget of corruption, remember that there’s every reason to believe that this lawsuit is baseless both as a legal and factual matter. I recommend reading:
As you may already know, Trump is not the only one the DOJ is persecuting…er, prosecuting. The DOJ also filed charges against Walt Nauta, a Navy veteran and Trump’s valet, accusing him of helping Trump conceal documents. (Remember, you cannot be accused of being engaged in or an accomplice to a crime if there’s no crime, to begin with.) As is becoming the norm, it turns out that the DOJ is engaging in dirty tricks as to Nauta, too.
Image: Trump’s in the way. Creator unknown.
The Guardian reported on Friday that Nauta’s lawyer has submitted a letter alleging that a top DOJ prosecutor threatened to derail the lawyer’s career aspirations if he didn’t bully his client into cooperating against Trump:
Nauta had already spoken to prosecutors in the investigation when they called his lawyer Stanley Woodward and summoned him to a meeting at justice department headquarters for an urgent matter that they were reluctant to discuss over the phone, the letter said.
When Woodward arrived at the conference room, he was seated across from several prosecutors working on the investigation, including the chief of the counterintelligence section, Jay Bratt, who explained that they wanted Nauta to cooperate with the government against Trump, the letter said.
Nauta should cooperate with the government because he had given potentially conflicting testimony that could result in a false statements charge, the prosecutors said according to the letter. Woodward is said to have demurred, disputing that Nauta had made false statements.
Bratt then turned to Woodward and remarked that he did not think that Woodward was a “Trump guy” and that “he would do the right thing”, before noting that he knew Woodward had submitted an application to be a judge at the superior court in Washington DC that was currently pending, the letter said.
The subtext behind the reference to Woodward’s judicial aspirations is clear: Nice little legal career you’ve got here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.
By the way, if this sounds strangely familiar, you’re right. As you may recall from what happened with the DOJ’s and FBI’s faked case against General Mike Flynn (also predicated on allegedly conflicting statements), Flynn’s first attorneys urged him into a terrible settlement because the DOJ threatened them directly.
Flynn was unaware that the DOJ was putting pressure on his attorneys by telling them that they, too, were in the crosshairs of an indictment. Instead of pulling out of the case because they had a conflict of interest, Flynn’s own attorneys railroaded him.
There’s an old saying: If you have the law on your side, argue the law. If you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. And if you have neither, pound the table. The DOJ and FBI have reworked that old saying: If you have the law on your side, argue the law. If you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. And if you have a trumped-up case, use threats and coercion to destroy the opposition’s attorney-client relationship, to suborn perjury, and force shameful plea bargains.