Trump Arraignment Day Two: The dumbest characters and storylines.
Donald Trump is appearing in Miami federal court at around 3 p.m. Tuesday to face charges of keeping classified documents near a toilet, as well as in other unapproved locations, and then lying to the government about having returned them after being issued a subpoena. (N.b.—there was a chandelier hanging over the toilet in the bathroom where he kept some of the documents.)
Here’s a quick rundown of the names that you might hear if you tune in to see the former president appear in court as a defendant for the second time this year. (Or, rather, if you tune in to watch reporters standing outside a courthouse, because there aren’t any cameras in the courtroom.) Most of them are lawyers!
AdvertisementDonald Trump: Former Apprenticehost and chief executive of United States. Alleged to have instructed staff members to move dozens of boxes of documents, including highly sensitive national defense material, from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after his presidential term ended. Alleged to have alsothen ordered staff to move boxes around so that he could keep some of the classified documents even after federal authorities asked for them back (and subsequently backed this request with a subpoena). There are other sub-allegations as well, some of which are addressed below.
Waltine “Walt” Nauta:Member of the Navy who served as a “valet” for Trump during his time in the White House, then left the service to work at Mar-a-Lago. Alleged to have helped Trump hide boxes that contained classified material, then to have lied about doing so to investigators. (The DOJ built its case in part by subpoenaing Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage that purportedly depicts the movement of the boxes.)
For what it’s worth, the Newspapers.com archive appears to feature only one other reference to a male Waltine in American history, that being a Waltine Jackson, originally of Ringling, Oklahoma, who, according to a 1930 edition of the Ringling Eagle, broke both of his arms and fractured his skull after falling off an oil tank in Virginia.
Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement AdvertisementTodd Blanche:Trump’s lead lawyer, as of last week, in the documents case. Instantly becomes one of the most important men named Todd in American history.
James Trusty, John Rowley:Lawyers who wouldhave been representing Trump in the documents case if they had not resigned last week.
Timothy Parlatore:Lawyer who would have been representing Trump in the documents case if he had not resigned last month. (We’ll get to the reason for these resignations in a second.)
Evan Corcoran:Lawyer who would have been representing Trump in the documents case had he not been compelled to testify about Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice earlier this year by a judge. Corcoran’s testimony appears to form the basis of several allegations in the indictment; one is that Trump suggested to his attorneys that they lie to the DOJ about whether he had any classified documents. Another is that he implied, via a “plucking” gesture, that one of them (presumably Corcoran) should remove particularly sensitive documents from a file that was to be handed over to the government (presumably so as to prevent investigators from learning that Trump had ever possessed such top-secret material in the first place).
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Read MoreBoris Epshteyn:Attorney and longtime Trump adviser who has reportedly seized control of Trump’s defense strategy by ingratiating himself with the former president, but is considered annoying by his other lawyers. Please note that it’s not merely rumoredthat Epshteyn annoys the other lawyers: After Timothy Parlatore resigned, he appeared on CNN and explained that he’d done so because Epshteyn interfered with his work and, in his opinion, “was not very honest with us or the client.” According to Rolling Stone, other Trump attorneys refer to Epshteyn as “Boris Inept-shteyn.”
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Unrelatedly, Epshteyn was convicted of disorderly conduct after a 2021 Arizona incident in which a woman who described him to police as a less attractive version of Tony Soprano said that he had touched her inappropriately. (The conviction was “set aside” after he completed an alcohol abuse course.)
Advertisement AdvertisementAileen Cannon:Trump-appointed judge assigned to hear Trump’s case. Infamous for having issued a previous related ruling considered so egregiously favorable to Trump (and indefensible legally) that it was unanimously reversed by an appeals panel that included two otherjudges appointed by Trump. (Trump’s appearance on Tuesday will likely come before a magistrate judge, not Cannon.)
Advertisement AdvertisementLaura Loomer:Genuinely unwell-seeming far-right activist and Trump supporter who has been banned from a variety of online platforms for, among other things, arguing that Muslims should not be allowed to work for rideshare companies (?). Was allowed back on Twitter after Elon Musk took over the company and, in her words, is now “REPORTING LIVE” from outside the Miami courthouse—although, confusingly, as of 12:15 p.m. her feed actually depicted a different woman talking to … this guy:
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What a cast of characters! What a beautiful web of democracy we weave, in this American experiment.
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