Trump lawyers face new problem in documents case after witness flips: ex-prosecutor
August 23, 2023
It's bad enough for Donald Trump that one of his co-defendants has reportedly flipped on him, now it turns out his lawyers could be constrained when questioning him under oath.
Speaking to MSNBC's Jose Diaz-Balart, former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance explained that the latest development in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case is that "Trump Employee 4," also known as the IT supervisor who oversaw the security cameras, has flipped.
Yuscil Taveras, previously identified as "Trump Employee 4" by CNN, changed his testimony about Trump the moment he was able to obtain new counsel that was not paid for by the former president. Previously, Taveras told the special counsel's team that he couldn't recall details about the security cameras. That testimony has now been recanted.
Taveras was sharing a lawyer with defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira before being moved over to a public defender.
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"We learned that that happened after the lawyer was — after the defendant was given or the witness was given access to a lawyer in D.C. You can see how confusing this all gets," said Vance. "When the witness spoke with a lawyer from the public defender's office, he realized his peril because he had previously lied in the grand jury. He came clean. He is now a witness and not a defendant because he told the truth."
While the news broke about Taveras on Tuesday, it happened months ago, before Trump was arraigned. https://www.rawstory.com/trump-documents-lawyers-witness-problem/ "We learned about this because of additional proceedings in Mar-a-Lago, where the government has asked that the court hold the same kind of hearing for Trump's co-defendants," explained Vance. "For Nauta and De Oliveira. They have the same issue. Here's the problem. Their lawyer represents them, but he has also, in the past, represented the witness, Taveras.
"It is a conflict of interest for those co-defendants of Trump, if they were to come clean, they would find themselves implicating folks. But at the same time, their lawyer can't vigorously cross-examine his former client and there is a real problem here for these defendants, where they need to have independent counsel who can advise them, should they continue as they are as defendants, might there be information that they should offer the government."
It means that Trump might have to pay for an additional lawyer for the other co-defendants unless they also flip.
Recently, Mark Meadows, former Trump chief of staff, and former Vice President Mike Pence confirmed that they never heard of or knew of any over-arching declassification rule about Trump's documents taken to Mar-a-Lago. Trump has claimed he declassified everything he took to Mar-a-Lago when he took the documents.
See her full explainer in the video below or at the link here.
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