House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) is demanding records from special counsel Jack Smith's office after a lawyer representing a defendant in former President Donald Trump's classified documents case said he was improperly pressured.
Lawyer Stanley Woodward is representing Walt Nauta, an aide to the former president who is charged alongside Trump with scheming to block the government's efforts to reclaim sensitive records.
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In a letter Jordan sent to Smith obtained by the Washington Examiner, Jordan cited reports from June that Woodward felt like he was being pressured to cooperate with Smith's office.
"This attempt to inappropriately coerce Mr. Woodward raises serious concerns about the abusive tactics of the Office of the Special Counsel," Jordan wrote.
Woodward claimed at a meeting last fall that the Justice Department's chief of counterintelligence, Jay Bratt, raised the issue of Woodward's application for a judgeship on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Prosecutors during that meeting were attempting to convince him that Nauta had lied and should cooperate in the investigation, Woodward said at the time.
"Bratt’s attempt to bully Mr. Nauta in cooperating, first by extorting his attorney and then by alleging a conflict of interest that precludes his attorney from the case, seriously calls into question your team and your ability to remain impartial and uphold the Department’s mission," Jordan wrote.
The letter comes after Woodward noted in court filings that another prior client, Mar-a-Lago IT worker Yuscil Taveras, signed a "non-prosecution" agreement with prosecutors.
Taveras began working with Smith's team after prosecutors had informed him that Woodward's representation of both clients may put their interests at odds.
The testimony from Taveras, who is listed in the indictment as "Trump Employee 4," led to a superseding indictment of Trump, Nauta, and a third co-defendant, Carlos de Oliveira, alleging they sought to delete Mar-a-Lago security camera footage capturing them moving boxes.
Woodward complained against Smith's team in a late Tuesday evening filing, saying that a cooperation agreement was only offered to Taveras after he spoke with outside counsel.
Jordan has sent several letters to prosecutors charging Trump and his allies across four separate criminal investigations. Earlier on Thursday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is leading a 41-count racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 others, reprimanded Jordan for his "attempt to invoke congressional authority" over her jurisdiction.
The committee chairman is seeking documents stemming from Woodward's discussion with prosecutors over his representation of Nauta and communications among senior DOJ officials related to the attorney's multiple past and current clients involved in the government's investigation.
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Jordan requested that Smith offer the requested documents by Sept. 21.
Read the full letter below.