Mar-a-Lago employee turned on Trump after receiving target letter from Jack Smith: report
According to a Tuesday court filing by United States Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith's office, an ex-maintenance employee for former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate "flipped" on the 2024 MAGA hopeful by retracting his testimony after telling "a grand jury that he hadn't been privy to any attempt to delete security footage," The Daily Beast reports.
Per The Beast, "after dumping his lawyer, Stanley Woodward, for another attorney offered up by the federal defender's office in Washington," Yuscil Taveras "quickly reversed course."
Salon reported earlier this summer that "Yuscil Taveras has been identified in an updated indictment as 'Trump Employee 4,' who received a target letter when the former president from special counsel Jack Smith when Trump first got indicted in June" for keeping classified documents in his possession after he left office in 2020.
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Now, Taveras "is being eyed as a key witness to an attempt to conceal evidence from the government," according to the report.
The Beast reports, "Sources familiar with the matter told ABC News that the employees' decision to switch lawyers and cooperate with Smith's office came after he received" the "target letter from Smith in June, indicating he knew Taveras had perjured himself during his grand jury testimony, and warning of possible criminal charges."
The news outlet also notes:
In the filing, Smith's office called for Judge Aileen Cannon to hold a 'Garcia' hearing in the matter. The purpose of Tuesday's filing was to add further weight to the prosecution's case for a hearing.
Lawyers for the co-defendants have strongly pushed back on the need for a hearing, suggesting that an alternative route might be to bar Taveras from testifying at all. On Tuesday, prosecutors said this would be an 'unprecedented' error.
They also reiterated that they still anticipate calling Taveras to the stand, where he will still 'very likely' be cross-examined about his prior false testimony by Woodward.
The special counsel's office also wrote in the filing that "Immediately after receiving new counsel," the former maintenance worker "retracted his prior testimony and 'provided information that implicated' Trump and his two alleged co-conspirators 'in efforts to delete security camera footage.'"
The Beast notes that "It was not immediately clear on Tuesday whether he still works at Mar-a-Lago."
READ MORE: Mar-a-Lago employee 'almost certainly' flipped against Trump in classified docs case: legal expert
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