A federal appeals court on Tuesday dismissed indictments against two former co-defendants of President Trump, ending the classified documents case that began almost two years ago in south Florida.
The Atlanta-based US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit threw out the charges against Trump’s valet Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, an employee at Mar-a-Lago who was accused of conspiring with the 45th and 47th president to conceal classified files.
The unsigned order to dismiss was filed nearly two weeks after the Justice Department had requested an end to the legal challenge soon after Trump took office Jan. 20.
Documents seized during the Aug. 8, 2022, FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. AP
The classified documents case that began almost two years ago in south Florida has ended. Getty ImagesNauta had been hit with eight criminal counts and De Oliveira with four charges for making false statements and obstruction of justice.
De Oliveira was also accused of trying to delete security footage at the president’s Palm Beach, Fla., resort showing Nauta shifting boxes of classified files out of the eye of federal authorities — and one of Trump’s own lawyers.
The FBI had raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022 and seized more than 100 classified documents after the then-former president suggested he wasn’t going to “play ball” with a subpoena.
Special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the indictments, resigned 10 days before Trump’s return to the White House and withdrew the 40 charges he had filed against the president in Florida — as well as 4 counts in Washington, DC, for alleged interference in the 2020 election.
Smith nevertheless kept pressing for a trial against Nauta and De Oliveira as well as the release of a comprehensive report on both of his criminal cases.
Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to release the volume pertaining to the classified documents case — but disclosed to the public the portions detailing Smith’s election interference case.
Walt Nauta is Trump’s valet. REUTERSThe 11th Circuit had been weighing for weeks a motion to dismiss Nauta and De Oliveira’s charges after South Florida US District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled last year that Smith had been unconstitutionally appointed.
Trump, 78, was still convicted of 34 counts in a Manhattan “hush money” case last May — but Judge Juan Merchan chose not to punish him and sentenced him to an “unconditional discharge.”
The president is still facing a 10-count indictment for allegedly trying to reverse the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was raided in August of 2022. APThat case has been bogged down at the appeals court-level and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the indictment against Trump and more than a dozen co-defendants, has been disqualified from it.
“Carlos should never have been charged in the first place, and I have zero doubt that he would have been acquitted at trial,” said De Oliveira attorney John Irving, reupping a statement he made after the DOJ moved to voluntarily withdraw its case. “It’s nice to see the Justice Department using better judgment these days.”
The Post reached out to Nauta’s attorney for comment.






