(CN) — An attorney for Donald Trump’s co-defendant in the classified documents case has acknowledged his prior representation of witnesses will ethically limit his role at trial, according to prosecutors.
Stanley Woodward Jr., an attorney for Walt Nauta, told the Justice Department his legal team could not ethically cross-examine his current or former clients if they testify at the former president’s trial in May, according to a government brief filed late Wednesday. Woodward also admitted his ethical obligations “may constrain” his ability to discredit the witnesses in closing arguments, the brief states.
It was a quick reversal for the Washington-based attorney, who disputed in a hearing last week that the tangle of attorney-client relations would affect his defense of Nauta. The Trump aide is accused of obstructing an investigation into the former president’s mishandling of classified records at Mar-a-Lago.
Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, issued an order Monday for the parties to confer before the government filed a brief outlining its arguments for limiting the lawyer’s role.
Woodward represented an IT specialist at Mar-a-Lago who told a grand jury in March he had no information about efforts to hide boxes of classified records at the Florida resort. The Trump employee changed his story in June after dumping Woodward as his attorney, however, telling authorities another resort employee, Carlos De Oliveira, pressured him to delete incriminating security footage.
Prosecutors filed a superseding indictment in July naming De Oliveira as a co-defendant and adding new obstruction-related charges against all three men.
It was “all but certain” that the IT specialist’s shifting testimony would be scrutinized in cross-examination, the brief states. He may also be questioned about Woodward, whose legal fees were paid for by a Trump-affiliated PAC and who represented the employee when he testified to the grand jury.
The questioning would put Woodward in an irreconcilable position. He presumably has information relevant to the witness’s cross-examination, but it is confidential under attorney-client rules. He’d be forced to choose between his loyalties to his former client or Nauta, prosecutors argue.
Woodward continues to represent an unidentified witness who may also be called at trial. The same problem would arise during that witness’ cross-examination, lawyers argue in the brief.
John Irving, an attorney for De Oliveira, acknowledged at an Oct. 12 hearing in Fort Pierce that his prior representation of three witnesses in the case left him equally compromised. Irving agreed at the hearing that his co-counsel on the case would cross-examine the witnesses if they testified.
Woodward offered prosecutors the same solution this week. He proposed that Sasha Dadan, Nauta’s Florida-based attorney, would question the witnesses.
Prosecutors pointed out in the brief that judges will “frequently” disqualify an attorney, or throw them off a case, instead of splitting cross-examination duties. The government has not requested such a remedy, however, instead deferring to Cannon’s judgment.
A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Friday.
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