Jack Smith advised the judge at Mar-a-Lago to ignore the valet's 'deeply flawed' attempt to dismiss the case by pointing to a conversation between the lawyer and a prosecutor over coffee

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The Special Counsel’s Office (SCO) asked the Mar-a-Lago judge to dismiss the 'deeply flawed' and 'meritless arguments' made by former President Donald Trump’s valet Walt Nauta in his reply brief.

Nauta is accused of conspiracy to obstruct, false statements to the FBI, and withholding documents linked to an alleged plan to erase Mar-a-Lago camera footage. Nauta's lawyers argued that the indictment should be thrown out because he was targeted and retaliated against with prosecution for not testifying in front of the grand jury. Special Counsel Jack Smith criticized the defense for making 'numerous false factual assertions and meritless arguments' in its reply, urging the judge to disregard them.

Smith stated that the judge should rule in favor of the SCO, as the defense's late move was 'procedurally improper' and should not be considered.

Smith advised the judge to ignore the inaccuracies in Nauta’s reply, stating that the defendants' repeated attempts to reserve arguments until their reply briefs do not benefit the Court or the efficient process.

The special counsel mocked Nauta’s claims that government 'animus' towards him is the reason for his legal troubles, calling them 'meritless' and dismissing the evidence provided as unimportant due to the timing of its submission.

In his motion, Nauta’s animus argument was based entirely on allegations about (a) his attorney’s conversation over coffee with a prosecutor, during which the prosecutor allegedly said the Government would not “accept anything less than Mr. Nauta’s full cooperation,” and later sent Nauta a target letter; and (b) Nauta’s declining to testify in the grand jury after receiving the target letter.

In its response, the Government explained that Nauta’s arguments were meritless because, among other things, his decision not to testify before the grand jury was not an invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights, and the Government’s decision to charge him after he declined to cooperate did not amount to vindictiveness as a matter of law.

Smith called Nauta’s vindictive prosecution theories 'deeply flawed' and advised that they should not factor into the judge’s ruling on the motion.

He suggested that the Court should disregard the arguments and evidence, regardless of whether they were intentionally or inadvertently delayed in submission.

The special counsel criticized Nauta’s selective prosecution claim, suggesting that it echoes the 'What about President Joe Biden’s staffers?' approach to combating the Mar-a-Lago case.

In his reply, Nauta chastised the Government for “focusing its response on these two individuals,” but they were the only ones he argued in his motion. He further claimed that he “only offered those [two] individuals as examples” in his opening brief— despite the word “example” appearing nowhere in that brief—and alleged a “universe of other comparators who, unlike Mr. Nauta, were likewise never prosecuted.” But instead of naming anyone else in that “universe,” Nauta resorted to his adoption of defendant Trump’s motion to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution, and attempted to rely on the comparators that Trump named in his motion, in an apparent effort to argue—for the first time—that President Biden’s staff members are similarly-situated comparators as to him. We say “apparent” only because Nauta provided no elaboration on his theory beyond mentioning these individuals and conclusorily dubbing them “similarly situated.”

In another filing, Trump’s defense lawyers informed Judge Cannon that they're going to be occupied with the New York hush-money criminal case for the next two months. a situation they were able to postpone successfully — which means that a trial date at Mar-a-Lago in late May or early June is no longer feasible.

Read the most recent legal documents from Trump's team here and here.