Why a Conflicts Hearing For Trump Co-Defendant Waltine Nauta Imploded
Roger Parloff/Lawfare
Last Thursday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida had scheduled two hearings in United States v. Trump—the case alleging that Donald Trump mishandled classified documents and obstructed justice—to apprise two co-defendants of potential conflicts their attorneys might be laboring under.
It had been clear from the outset that the issues surrounding co-defendant Waltine Nauta’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, Jr., were far thornier than those concerning co-defendant Carlos De Oliveira’s lawyer, John S. Irving IV. Still, few expected the afternoon to play out the way it did—with Nauta’s hearing being abruptly aborted after Assistant Special Counsel David Harbach raised weighty issues that hadn’t been laid out in the government’s briefs. Woodward protested that he had not had a chance to discuss the issues with Nauta; that the government’s position was wrong on the law; and that he could not properly advise his client until Judge Cannon ruled on whether she accepted the government’s theories.
Visibly and audibly irritated, Cannon curtly adjourned Nauta’s hearing, promising to issue a scheduling order calling for more briefing and another hearing. “I admonish the government for wasting the court’s time,” she said.
The hearings, which had been requested by the government, were what are known in the Eleventh Circuit, which includes Florida, as Garcia hearings. These are proceedings at which a judge engages in a lengthy dialogue with a defendant to make sure he or she understands his attorney’s potential or actual conflicts. The judge then obtains the defendant’s commitment to either waive those conflicts or seek new counsel. If the conflicts are too grave to waive, the judge may disqualify the attorney.
Read more: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/why-a-conflicts-hearing-for-trump-co-defendant-waltine-nauta-imploded
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