Don’t know the guy. Maybe saw him once or twice. I think he made coffee.
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
trump was taking to his lawyer about how Hillary Clinton’s lawyer took responsibility for deleting her emails (remember her emails!) so that they were deleted, Hillary wasn’t blamed for it and she didn’t get in trouble, and wasn’t her lawyer a great guy? Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. The implication being he was asking his lawyer to make the documents disappear, take responsibility for it, and then trump wouldn’t be in trouble and his lawyer would be a great guy.
I don’t know who specifically is was, by name, but he’s talking about Clinton’s lawyer. See an analysis here:
Basically, he’s pulling a “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” play here. “Hey, this lawyer took the fall for Hillary, wouldn’t it be nice if some lawyer took the fall for me?” He won’t order them to take the fall, that’s too obvious, but if one of them should ‘misunderstand’ him, and take the fall, well, so sad, Trump gets to skate…
I have no idea if his story about the lawyer doing this is actually true or not, though.
Federal plea bargains concern charges, not the sentence directly.
Putting that aside, deals are available except, maybe and rarely, for the most violent crimes. So - prospects are close to 100 percent. Whether he would need to cooperate to get a big reduction in charges, I don’t know. Maybe the prosecution wouldn’t think him a good witness for their side.
As for his only hope, I disagree. Jury trials are unpredictable. And a lot of Trump supporters will be in the Florida jury pool.
Thanks to you and @Horatius. That makes sense.
There was speculation on MSNBC by some guest (I was listening in my car.) that suggested Smith is saying: “If we convict Trump in Trump country, with a Trump bootlicker of a judge, then we we have well and truly convicted Trump.”
I have no choice but to wish Smith well, and keep my fingers crossed.
Federal sentencing is based off a scoresheet, where more points is bad. Taking responsibility for your actions, showing remorse, and helping being a co-conspirator to justice can all reduce your score. So he has incentive to cooperate.
Can Nauta flip during the trial?
That is, can he reassess his situation and testify that, yes, he conspired with Trump to do the things they’re accused of doing, with a much reduced sentence for his part in the conspiracy, or does that door shut for him at some point in the process?
He can make a deal any time, if the Government wants it. Often, by that time, they don’t feel the need and are less willing to make a deal.
I have to wonder. Trump may be a hoarder. Donno. It’s almost certainly an ego boost for him to have the documents.
Somewhere along the way he realized (or was informed) that the documents could be worth a shit ton of money, and POWER.
He did NOT realize that he could NOT extort the government of the United States like he does everyone else.
I hope the the DOJ gets a chance to sit him down and sweat him a little explaining that he’s looking at doing serious time, and that Trump won’t have his back and if given the opportunity will cheerfully throw him under a bus to save himself like he has so many others.
I actually feel a bit sorry for Nauta. Were it not for Trump it sounds like he might have been a decent guy with a good life ahead of him.
And it sends a strong signal to the defense if they don’t offer a deal to Nauta. It says we don’t need him to convict you. Maybe offer him Queen for a day and an extra cup of pudding.
For anyone else, being President of The United States of America would be all the ego boost needed to last a lifetime and beyond.
For Trump, it still doesn’t sooth his insecurity.
Yeah, that’s the thing. Arguing in public is fun and all, you can just make shit up, and no one has the power to make you put up or shut up.
But when you start trying that shit with government employees, as part of their job, well, hey look, they have the power of law behind them, so it’s put up or shut up time.
I’ve experienced this in my own work. Sure, Free Energy Guy, you can ignore me in online message boards, but when you’re applying for a patent? Now shit gets real.
That’s the first time I’ve read an indictment cover-to-cover. Are they usually this entertaining?
The ones for trump have been.
I’m sure that doj have already offered nauta things. He could be like trump org cfo and willing to go to prison for trump.
I assume that it varies but, in my history of reading indictments against people in Trump’s orbit, I’d put it somewhere in the middle.
Roger Stone’s threats to kill his neighbor’s (friend’s?) dog stands out in my memory.
My assumption would be that the timing of the indictment came directly from determining that Nauta wasn’t going to flip.
Similarly for Robert Mueller’s investigation. They ended it when they did because their only hope to keep going up the ladder rested with Paul Manafort and he refused or was unable to turn on anyone else. Assuming that Manafort could have turned on someone, I’d expect that the Mueller investigation would have continued.
The one thing in the indictment that cracked me up was when a Trump employee, texting about the boxes of papers that Trump wanted kept out of storage as the “beautiful mind paper boxes”. I assume he was being sarcastic.
Nauta’s lawyer is being paid by Trump, right? So would it be ethical for him not to advise “his” client, “Hey, Walt, you know the feds are offering you a pretty sweet deal–minimal jail time, downgrading certain charges–and all you have to testify what your boss ordered you to do”?
Seems to me, the government doesn’t want Nauta at all, and would offer him a very nice deal in exchange for his testimony against Trump, and any lawyer NOT being paid by Trump would recommend Nauta take such a deal rather than risk doing serious time. I don’t understand the ethics involved here.