A Florida federal judge presiding over the criminal classified documents case of former President Donald Trump set a hearing for his two co-defendants’ efforts to toss out their indictments next week.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon called on Monday for a nonevidentiary hearing at 10 a.m. on April 19 over separate motions from Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira and Trump valet Walt Nauta. While the hearing won’t involve Trump, it will take place just four days after jury selection begins in his separate hush-money case in Manhattan, where he is expected to attend the trial each day the court is in session for the next several weeks.
The April 19 hearing will address De Oliveira’s motion to dismiss the indictment as well as Nauta’s motions to dismiss for failure to state any offense, for vagueness as applied to him, and based on the rule of lenity.
If Cannon does not throw out the charges against them, both defendants will seek a bill of particulars from special counsel Jack Smith, which would give them “information about the details of the charges against him that are necessary to the preparation of his defense and to avoid prejudicial surprise at trial.”
The judge also said she would issue an order “directing partially redacted filings” of Nauta’s latter two motions to dismiss.
Prosecutors accused De Oliveira of helping Nauta move roughly 30 boxes containing classified documents from Trump’s residence to a storage room on June 2, 2022, and further alleged that Trump spoke with Nauta on the phone hours before moving the boxes.
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De Oliveira and Nauta are facing multiple obstruction-related offenses and have pleaded not guilty to all their charges. Trump is facing 40 charges total in the classified documents case and has pleaded not guilty.
Counsel for the two co-defendants will be in Florida federal court next week as the former president begins his trial in the Manhattan case accusing him of 34 counts related to allegedly concealing a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 election. Trump had pleaded not guilty to the charges there as well.