Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Co-Defendant FORGOT HIS ARGUMENT in Court

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Trump butler and Mar a Lago co conspirator Walt Nauta to step on a bad news cycle where a cooperating witness informed the FBI that Nauta was told to lie to the FBI to protect Trump in return for a pardon, filed a meritless motion claiming prosecutorial misconduct by the Special Counsel, and then FORGOT TO INCLUDE ANY EXAMPLES OF PROSECUTOR MISCONDUCT. Michael Popok analyzes the latest attempt to delay the Mar a Lago trial and why explains why it should BE DENIED. Find out how you can get a FREE THIRTY-DAY Supply of NEW Superbeets Heart Chews Advanced and save 15% by going to https://GetSuperbeets.com Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/legalaf Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Michael Popak with Illegal AF Hot Take. Well, I've seen some pretty poorly written and argued motions in my day, but the new motion by Walt Nauta and his lawyers to try to dismiss the indictment in Mar-a-Lago once again, after already having his motion to dismiss denied last week, may take the cake. I mean, I breathlessly went through the 15 page motion alleging that the indictment against Walt Nauta, the superseding indictment back in July of 2023 should be dismissed because of selective and vindictive prosecution. And I was on the edge of my seat.

I said, there's gotta be a really great bombshell evidence that they're using. Something that shows the animus, the evil intent of the prosecutors against Walt Nauta to go after Walt Nauta, to selectively prosecute Walt Nauta. I couldn't wait. It was like a novel. I was really getting into it. And then I read the motion.

And nowhere in the motion, I'll just give you the spoiler alert now as I go through the motion for you, nowhere in the motion is there any evidence of any improper conduct by the prosecutors that would support a motion to dismiss for vindictive or selective prosecution. Let's separate them.

Vindictive prosecution requires that you show evidence of genuine animus towards the defendant. Okay? Where is it? I looked through the 15 pages. I looked through the paragraph about animus and there wasn't any listed. Only proper functioning of a prosecutor's office in trying to get various witnesses to either cooperate or be indicted. He then says, well, in addition to the animus, there is selective prosecution because there were other people that moved boxes around Mar-a-Lago, like executive assistants and housekeepers, and they didn't get indicted,icted right because they were given immunity and they're cooperating with the government. This is almost like Walt Nauta and his lawyer,

Stan Woodward, who by the way is paid by Donald Trump. You know, Walt Nauta has a paid for Donald Trump lawyer in Stan Woodward. They use a local lawyer nobody's ever heard of up in Fort Pierce as their local counsel. I think she literally ran some sort of ambulance chasing or ticket clinic for speeding tickets up in Fort Pierce. That's their local council who actually signed this particular pleading. They threw her a hospital pass, let her sign the pleading under the federal rules

that require a lawyer to sign a pleading in good faith. Stan Woodward didn't sign the pleading. He had this other person sign it. Let me get into this, but I think I want to remind everybody about Walt Nauta. Walt Nauta, the body man, butler, whatever you want to call him, worked for Donald Trump in the White House, followed him out of the White House.

There's new reporting, I just did a hot take on it, that a cooperating witness with the government, witness number 16 with the FBI, that's all we know for right now, who had tremendous access to Donald Trump was told by Donald Trump and others in his inner circle that if Walt Nauta lied to the FBI, he would get a pardon if Donald Trump got reelected and that Walt Nauta relied on this. That's nowhere of course to be found in the new motion to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution.

Although I've got to question the timing. Once again, bad news cycle for Walt Natter, right? Evidence, real evidence that comes out about somebody pointing the finger at him and saying that he's got a Trump controlled lawyer in Stan Woodward and that he was promised a pardon, which explains why Walt Nauta all this time hasn't testified. So on that same news cycle towards the end, we get another ridiculous motion to dismiss for selective or vindictive

prosecution. Let me just remind everybody what the indictment against Walt Nauta says, because I think that's really important. So we got to go back to, and we'll put it up on the screen at some point, we got to go back to July 27th of 2023. And particularly, we got to go to the paragraphs that came because of this, what we call the superseding indictment. That's the amended indictment that happened after Yosile Tavares, the IT worker, decided he didn't want to be indicted, fired Donald Trump's other paid-for lawyer, got his own public defender, and cooperated with the FBI and the government. And then he told the rest of the co-conspirators, he told the FBI about what the other co-conspirators had told him about trying to delete the video

surveillance footage at Trump's demand because he was afraid it would show the movement of boxes as he was trying to hide them and hoard them away from the National Archive and ultimately the federal judges and federal magistrates and the Department of Justice. So the new paragraphs are what came out of the superseding indictment. And when we all saw them, we said, aha, Yosel Tevaris is obviously cooperating. And that's why we have the addition of these other counts.

So if you go to third, I'm gonna start with 74 and paragraphs, because I want you to remember and the audience to, what Walt Nowt did, as alleged. So paragraph 74 says that on June 3rd, 2022, a year earlier, when the FBI agents were at Mar-a-Lago to collect the documents from Trump attorneys one and three, that would have been Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, the agents observed that there were surveillance cameras located near the storage room. So on June 22, the Department of Justice emailed an attorney in Trump's organization, a draft

grand jury subpoena for that security footage, wanting all footage from cameras on ground floor basement where the storage room was located. That's June 22nd. On June 23rd at 846 at night, Trump called co-conspirator maintenance worker Carlos de Olvera and they spoke for 24 minutes. The government has the phone records. On the next day, June 24th,

the Department of Justice emailed the attorney for the Trump's business organization, a grand jury subpoena that had been issued by the grand jury for all surveillance records, videos, photographs, CCTV for internal cameras located at Mar-a-Lago, including on the ground floor basement. That same day, Trump attorney, one, who's Evan Corcoran, spoke with Trump by phone regarding the subpoena. At 3 44 that same day, Nauta, right, he's the guy bringing the motion to the Smith, the dismissed now received a text message from co worker Trump employee number three

telling him that Trump wanted to see Nauta. Nauta had a scheduled trip outside of Mar-a-Lago. He changed his schedule and hightailed it back to Palm Beach. That's paragraph 78. Paragraph 80, this is also on June 24th, just two days after the grand jury subpoena is issued for the surveillance footage. Nauta was making his travel plans to go to Florida from Bedminster. Then Nauda and Diolaviera, the maintenance worker, contacted Trump employee number four, who is the director of information technology. That's Yusile Tavares at Mar-a-Lago, and they had the following text exchange on the 24th.

Nauda to Yusile Tavares, hey bro, you around this weekend? Nauda texted Diolaviera. Hey bro, you around this weekend? Now to text to DeOliveira. Hey brother, you working today? DeOliveira says yeah, I just left. Trump employee number four texts to Nauda. I am local, entertaining some family. What's up? That's Yassil Tavares. Nauda says okay cool, no biggie, just wanted to see if you were around. Enjoy bro. Later that same night, Olivera texts Yusele Tavares. Hey buddy, how are you? Walter, that's Nauta, called me earlier and said I was trying to get in touch with you. I guess he's coming down tomorrow. He needs

you for something. Yusele Tavares responds, he reached out but he didn't say he wanted to see me. He told me no worries. Later that same night, Nauta said, hey bro, if you need me, I can get away for a few, just let me know. That's Yusele Tavares. Nauta responded, sounds good. Then on the 25th of June, Nauta traveled from New Jersey to Mar-a-Lago, checks in with D'Oliveira. They then go together on the 25th with DeOliveira to Mar-a-Lago, and they start looking for the surveillance footage. On the 27th of June, DeOliveira walks into the IT office where Yusele Tavares works, and he asked Yusele Tavares to step out so that DeOliveira and Yusele Tavais could talk, then they start talking about deleting

the security footage. The boss, particularly 84C, says that D'Oliveira told Trump employee number four that the boss, that's Trump, wanted the server deleted and insisted that the boss wanted deleted, and then what are we going to do? Which brings back Nauta, where they call Nauta, and then Nauta, De Oliveira, and Lucille Taveras have a conversation about deleting the security footage.

So don't come to me, Walt Nauta, and your lawyers and act like you're blameless, and you can't figure out why you've been indicted. And you want to argue that everybody who would have done what you did, including later lying to the federal government and the FBI about the movement of documents when you didn't think it was caught on surveillance video is somehow going to prevail.

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And let's go to page nine and 10 under the argument. This is where the meat is supposed to be. The rubber meets the road in the motion. Mr. Nauda's due process rights were violated when he was retaliated against because he took his Fifth Amendment rights. And then they lay out how he, Nauda, refused to testify before the grand jury

the second or third time. But then there's no evidence whatsoever that there's any retaliation in response. I mean it's completely blank at the spot where he should have said, and that's where the Department of Justice retaliated, there's nothing listed there. Then under that there's a header that says, special counsel acted with genuine animus towards Mr. Nauda. Now you've got me at the edge of my seat. What is it? I'm going to read the paragraph and you tell me where the animus is. In seeking to establish that he is the subject to vindictive prosecution,

they argue Mr. Nauta must first demonstrate that there was objective evidence of genuine animus towards Mr. Nauta. I agree with that. Okay, give it to me. And here it is, at their May 9th, 2023 informal meeting, okay, whose invitation was posited to Mr. Woodward as a coffee chat. So the lawyer for Nauta thought it was gonna be a cup of coffee with the federal government doing an investigation

of the former president. Mr. Raskin, who works for the Department of Justice, nevertheless represented to Mr. Woodward that the prosecution would not accept anything less than Mr. Douda's full cooperation in the investigation. Oh, that's terrible news. Now how to cooperate fully? I mean, I'm sorry, I've been doing this a long time. Every prosecutor either is going to give you immunity in return for full cooperation or they're going to prosecute you because they don't need your full cooperation. But there's no Twilight Zone in the middle where you can get immunity and not be prosecuted and give less than full prosecution.

Come on, Stan Woodward. I mean, I like doing the hot take, but really? Okay, here we go. But listen still for where is the genuine animus? I'm gonna finish reading the paragraph so you don't think I'm leaving anything out. So the government says your client's gotta fully cooperate. Moreover, their discussion was

exclusively concerned inquiries as to possible violations of lying to the FBI concerning alleged false statements to a federal grand jury made by Mr. Nauda. So that's the end of the paragraph. So let me get this straight. The general animus is you thought you were gonna have a cup of coffee with a special prosecutor prosecuting your client. And when you got there, they said that your client lied under oath to the FBI and was gonna be subject to further prosecution unless he fully cooperated.

And that's the genuine animus. I'm not making this up guys, seriously. It's making my job a lot easier, but that is the entirety of the grounds in the motion. And then you go on and they go, and this is my next favorite, my second favorite sentence is on page 10 of their motion. Second, Mr. Nauda, but for that animus.

I'm like, what animus? What venal intent? What hostile motive that the prosecutors told you your client's gotta fully cooperate to get an immunity deal? This is like white collar defense 101, Stan Woodward. I don't know what you're talking about, but there we are. Then on selective prosecution, it's just a whole bunch of what aboutisms talking about, but there we are. Then on selective prosecution,

it's just a whole bunch of what about-isms. Sure, we did bad things. We tried to drown, delete, erase security footage at Trump's behest because he didn't realize there were security cameras in his own Mar-a-Lago. Sure, we tried to move boxes in and out of the room and hide them from the lawyers that were trying to cooperate with the federal government.

But what about the housekeeper? What about the executive assistants? Well, they're getting immunity. They're getting co-op, they came in first. They're not making the government go through a 20, $30 million investigation of taxpayer dollars because they're doing the right thing and giving their evidence to the FBI.

That's why they're not being prosecuted. That's not selective prosecution. That's not vindictive prosecution. That's smart prosecution, right? You get people to cooperate, to flip, to turn on, right? The other people. I mean, and then, and so it's just a whole bunch of, you know, redacted names for other people

that why aren't they here with me? Why weren't they indicted? Because they're gonna be witnesses against you. Because you're gonna see them. Don't worry if you're lonely, Walt. You and your lawyer, Stan Woodward, and this local council, I feel sorry for her to be frank, this local council, Sasha Dadin, you know, I saw her ads before this. It was like, hot

mess Barbie, got a speeding ticket, call Sasha Dadin. I'm not making this up. Believe me. I would make up something even worse. You know, have her sign it because they don't want to get, they don't want to get totally in trouble. But you're going to see these witnesses, Walt, they're going to come through the wooden door because they're free and they're going to testify against you in the courtroom in Mar-a-Lago if we ever get around to setting this case for trial. So we have another motion to dismiss for selective prosecution and vindictive prosecution this time by Walt Nowdow. It should be rejected except we're in the world of Judge Aileen Cannon,

so we'll have to be patient. It's going to be a roller coaster. It's going to be a white knuckle event. She'll get a little wobbly. She's got the 11th circuit that's breathing down her neck to make sure she does the right thing. And we'll report on it here on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network. The only place for this type of analysis, the intersection of law and politics. Join us on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern Time for the YouTube version and the audio version of Legal AF the podcast. Join us, you'll find out why we call it that. Then you can follow me Michael Popok on all things social media at mspopok and on hot takes like this one you can find my whole body of work, Midas Touch YouTube

channel, look under playlists or contributors for Michael Popok. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, hey, we got a new Patreon, patreon.com slash Legal AF. It's like a Ted Talk meets a law school class and had a baby. And if you like that kind of content, you'll like it on our Legal AF Patreon. So until the next exclusive content on Legal AF Patreon, this is Michael Popak reporting. exclusive content you won't find anywhere else, all for the price of a couple of cups of coffee. Join us at patreon.com slash legal AF. That's patreon.com slash legal AF.