Left: Carlos De Oliveira, property manager of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estates stands on the property grounds, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell). Center: U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida). Right: Donald Trump walks past Walt Nauta, personal aide, before a business roundtable at a campaign event at Precision Components Group, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in York, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
In a move that will put an end the last vestiges of the federal criminal cases against Donald Trump, Justice Department attorneys on Wednesday formally asked a federal appeals court to dismiss the criminal charges against the president’s two co-defendants over allegations that Trump mishandled classified documents at his home Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
“The United States of America moves to voluntarily dismiss its appeal with prejudice,” the motion from Assistant U.S. Attorney Hayden P. O’Byrne states. “The government has conferred with counsel for Appellees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who do not object to the voluntary dismissal.”
Nauta, Trump’s valet, and De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, had been charged with conspiring to obstruct federal investigators looking into allegations that Trump unlawfully kept classified documents at his resort property following the end of his first term in office.
The indictments stemmed from investigations headed by special counsel Jack Smith, who resigned earlier this month after dismissing the criminal charges against Trump due to long-standing DOJ policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
The classified documents case against Trump had been a lightning rod for controversy, particularly when it was assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed the case against all of the defendants, holding that special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unlawful.
The Trump-appointed judge’s legal reasoning for the dismissal was considered highly dubious and most legal experts expected the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse her ruling and reinstate the case. However, any chance of the case progressing evaporated after Trump won re-election and took control of the DOJ.
The classified documents case also took center stage in the recent controversy over the release of Jack Smith’s final report on his investigations into Trump. Smith’s final report comprised two volumes. The first related to his investigation and prosecution of Trump in connection with his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The second dealt with the classified documents case.
Cannon last month issued an order temporarily prohibiting then-Attorney General Merrick Garland from releasing either version of the report. After eventually allowing for the release of the election subversion volume of the report — and conceding she lacked the authority to stop its release — Cannon steadfastly refused to allow four members of Congress to have chambers-only access to review a redacted version of the second volume.
In a scathing order issued last week, Cannon maligned the Biden administration’s DOJ for its efforts to have the report viewed by congressional leaders, taking particular issue with the claim that Garland had “limited time” remaining in his position and wanted to “see this [investigation] through to conclusion and comply with historical practice.”
“Never before has the Department of Justice, prior to the conclusion of criminal proceedings against a defendant — and absent a litigation-specific reason as appropriate in the case itself — sought to disclose outside the Department a report prepared by a Special Counsel containing substantive and voluminous case information. Until now,” she wrote. “There is no ‘historical practice’ of providing Special Counsel reports to Congress, even on a limited basis, pending conclusion of criminal proceedings. In fact, there is not one instance of this happening until now.”
