During a hearing on Thursday discussing a potential conflict involving a lawyer in the case, the federal judge supervising the case against former President Donald Trump over the use of sensitive documents criticised the prosecution team led by special counsel Jack Smith.
The New York Times stated that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon “postponed a hearing on whether one of Trump’s co-defendants understood that his lawyer might have conflicts of interest,” adding that she also reprimanded the prosecution team for “wasting” time.
David Harbach, a prosecutor working with the special counsel Jack Smith on the case, was warned by Cannon of the Federal District Court in Fort Pierce, Florida, “I do want to admonish the government for frankly wasting the court’s time.”
The Times continued, “At issue was a request by Mr. Smith’s team for Judge Cannon to hold a hearing to ensure that Mr. Trump’s co-defendants — both of whom are employed by him — understood that their lawyers, who are being compensated by a political action committee linked to the former president and who have represented witnesses in the case — had potential conflicts. The hearing went largely without incident in the case of one co-defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s exclusive club and estate.
Harbach claimed before the court that Irving is bound by confidentiality and loyalty commitments to past clients, and those could be in jeopardy if he were to question their credibility during summations to the jury or cross-examine them in his defence of De Oliveira, according to the Time.
Cannon noted at the hearing that those points were absent from the prosecutor’s papers prior to the hearing. Irving informed the judge that he is no longer the witnesses’ attorney. De Oliveira stated he wanted to keep Irving as his lawyer after explaining to Cannon that English wasn’t his first language. This was reported by the outlet.
When Cannon, a Trump appointee, took up the case of Walt Nauta, a personal advisor to the former president, the hearing grew more complicated. Smith charged Nauto and De Oliveira with interfering with the federal government’s investigation into how Trump handled the confidential materials he brought with him when he left the White House.
“Mr. Harbach contended that Stanley Woodward, Mr. Nauta’s attorney, may have had conflicts of interest because he had previously represented a different witness in the case. The witness is listed in court documents only as Trump Employee 4, but those informed on the case have identified him as Yuscil Taveras, an internet technology assistant at Mar-a-Lago, according to The Times.
“Mr. Taveras changed his testimony to the grand jury about the involvement of Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira in Mr. Trump’s alleged interest in deleting security footage from the club that the government had subpoenaed,” the paper continued.
At one point, Woodward protested, telling Cannon that it wasn’t clear what the prosecutors were asking her to do or what they were arguing for, adding that under the current circumstances, it wouldn’t be fair to Nauta whether he waived his rights to a lawyer who did not have any conflicts.