A key witness in former President Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago classified documents case has retracted prior “false testimony” after changing lawyers, special counsel Jack Smith’s team wrote in a Tuesday evening court filing.
The witness is identified in court records as “Employee 4” and has since retained new counsel. Smith’s lawyers said the witness, who is believed to be property IT director Yuscil Taveras, gave new evidence to prosecutors implicating Trump, his aide Walt Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago staffer Carlos De Oliveira.
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“Immediately after receiving new counsel, Trump Employee 4 retracted his prior false testimony and provided information that implicated Nauta, De Oliveira and Trump in efforts to delete security camera footage, as set forth in the superseding indictment,” the court filings said.
Assistant special counsel David Harbach, who signed the new filing, revealed the details of the reversal in a filing to Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of Trump who is overseeing the classified documents case.
Cannon had previously questioned why Smith’s team continued to gather evidence from a grand jury in Washington, D.C., after Smith obtained a grand jury indictment in Florida in June charging Trump with over 30 counts of holding on to classified documents after leaving the Oval Office.
Smith also informed Cannon in the filing that the Washington grand jury completed its work on Aug. 17.
Cannon’s request came around the same time that prosecutors raised concerns about a conflict of interest between Nauta and Taveras, who were both at one point represented by lawyer Stanley Woodward, who has also represented defendants charged in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Smith’s team said that Taveras’s altered testimony would put Woodward in a bind if he continued to represent Nauta since Woodward may have to ask his former client about why his story had changed.
Harbach also said Woodward appeared to be using “those conflicts to gain a tactical advantage at trial by excluding highly incriminating evidence to the benefit of not only his own client but also a co-defendant (Trump) whose PAC is paying his legal fees.”
Defense lawyers have said there isn’t anything inappropriate about Trump’s PAC paying for lawyers for witnesses, arguing that it is a regular practice among political campaigns and companies that come under investigation.
Cannon has yet to determine whether to hold a hearing about the conflict in question.
Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira are charged in the case with attempting to obstruct investigators seeking to recover government documents, among other charges, and all three have pleaded not guilty.
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The former president is also facing charges in three other cases. He has been indicted in Washington and Georgia in two separate cases investigating his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and in New York on state charges of allegedly falsifying business records involving hush money payments in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
He has maintained his innocence in each of the cases.
