(CN) — Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the classified documents case asked a federal judge Friday to toss out their charges in a new volley of attacks on the special counsel’s indictment.
Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, both employees of Trump, are charged with conspiring with the former president to obstruct an FBI investigation into the hoarding of classified documents at the former president's Mara-a-Lago resort.
All three have pleaded not guilty.
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon heard arguments for dismissing the charges Friday afternoon at a federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, where the employees were indicted last year on obstruction-related charges.
The judge did not immediately rule on the motions, according to the Associated Press.
Nauta, a valet for Trump, is accused of defying a federal subpoena by helping his boss conceal classified documents at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Nauta removed dozens of boxes of materials from a storage room days before Trump’s lawyer searched the resort for records subject to the subpoena, according to prosecutors in his indictment.
Prosecutors say Nauta knew the boxes contained sensitive information and that he texted another employee a photo of documents that had spilled onto the floor. One of the documents had visible classification markings.
De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, is accused of conspiring with Trump and Nauta to pressure an IT manager to delete incriminating security footage at the resort. The IT manager refused and has since become a cooperating witness for the government.
Both employees challenged the indictment for failing to clearly explain their purported wrongdoing.
De Oliveira argued in a motion filed in February that the 60-page indictment never claims that he knew classified documents were being kept at Mar-a-Lago. He was further unaware that the resort’s surveillance footage was subject to a federal subpoena, making its destruction a crime.
Prosecutors countered they did not need to prove that De Oliveira participated in every aspect of the conspiracy to be charged as a participant in it. The property manager knew deleting the footage would thwart a federal investigation — that’s enough to charge him, they say.
Nauta attacked the indictment on similar grounds, arguing the indictment contained no evidence that he acted “corruptly,” or with the unlawful intent to benefit himself or another. The valet said he helped pack Trump’s boxes when he left the White House and later moved them around Mar-a-Lago, but he did not know their contents.
“The only person benefiting from these acts was former President Trump,” Nauta's lawyer, Stanley Woodward, said in court Friday, the AP reported.
If the judge declined to dismiss the indictment, they asked that she order prosecutors to further detail the charges.
Prosecutors responded in filings that they have already provided defense attorneys a wealth of information — including 682,000 records in discovery — that support the charges.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, has so far rejected the defendants’ attempts to dismiss the case, including Trump's claim for immunity under the Presidential Records Act. But the challenges have succeeded in bogging down the case and delaying a trial originally scheduled for May.
Attorneys for both sides agreed the historic trial could be held before November’s election, where Trump will likely face off against President Joe Biden, but Cannon has not yet scheduled a new date.
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