A key witness in the Trump classified docs case changed his testimony after switching lawyers, special counsel says
A key witness in the Trump classified docs case changed his testimony after switching lawyers, special counsel says
The man identified as "Trump Employee 4" had been represented by Stanley Woodward, who was being paid by the former president's Save America PAC.
A key witness against former President Donald Trump and his two co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago documents case recanted previous false testimony and provided new information implicating the defendants after he switched lawyers, special counsel Jack Smith’s office said in a new court filing.
Yuscil Taveras, the director of information technology at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's club in Palm Beach, Florida, changed his testimony last month about efforts to delete security camera video at the club after he changed from a lawyer paid for by Trump’s Save America PAC to a public defender, Tuesday's filing says.
Is it odd that he switched to public defender instead of acquiring his own representation?
Well considering Trump has a long history of not actually paying his employees, wouldn't be surprised if this guy couldn't afford it
On review of all the additional evidence and testimony, it became obvious to the prosecution that the key witness ("Trump Employee 4" - revealed by NBC News to be "Yuscil Taveras" - IT Director at Mar-a-Lago) in question had perjured himself in earlier grand jury testimony and that it was a conflict of interest for that witness to be represented by by the same attorney (Stanley Woodward) representing other involved clients.
Prosecutors asked for a hearing on the representation issue before James Boasberg, the chief US District Court judge in Washington DC who oversaw the grand jury investigation.
Judge Boasberg had a federal defender available to advise Taveras if requested, and Taveras did opt to change lawyers after he learned he was being investigated on suspicion of making false statements in previous grand jury testimony.
So, TL/DR: he went with the public defender out of the immediacy and need for independent counsel and the only option available at that moment was the public defender who was pre-emptively made available by the Judge himself.
I will speculate that he will be acquiring his own representation going forward.
Attorneys will jump on it, their name attached to a case like this can make and break careers.
Probably was offered immunity, but his Trump paid lawyer said no. So why spend money on a lawyer when you can get a public defender for free and then take the deal?
So there's an attorney recommendinf perjury? Not very cashmoney of him...
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A key witness against former President Donald Trump and his two co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago documents case recanted previous false testimony and provided new information implicating the defendants after he switched lawyers, special counsel Jack Smith’s office said in a new court filing.
Taveras decided to change lawyers after he learned he was being investigated on suspicion of having made false statements in his previous grand jury testimony in Washington, D.C., the court filing says.
"When Trump Employee 4 testified before the grand jury in the District of Columbia in March 2023, he repeatedly denied or claimed not to recall any contacts or conversations about the security footage at Mar-a-Lago," the filing says.
By late June, prosecutors had "advised Trump Employee 4 (through Mr. Woodward) that he was the target of a grand jury investigation in the District of Columbia into whether he committed perjury."
Prosecutors asked for a hearing on the representation issue before James Boasberg, the chief U.S. District Court judge in Washington, D.C., who oversaw the grand jury investigation.
Shelli Peterson — the first assistant federal public defender in Washington, whom the special counsel's filing refers to — declined to comment Tuesday night.
The original article contains 717 words, the summary contains 196 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys.
Not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure telling your client to lie is a No-No!
You could argue he wasn’t the guy’s lawyer
who was being paid by the former president's Save America PAC
A lawyer represents whoever is the paying his bills.
Like I said, I'm not a lawyer. Still pretty sure that elling anyone to lie on the stand is a No-No.
So instead of being bought, he's being extorted? Yeah that totally makes the current version of his story more valid... Throw this motherfucker off the witness stand and send him on his way, he's either full of shit or he's full of shit...
Are we planning on indicting everyone who testifies for the defense on fraud charges? Is that how this shit works now? Tell me how this is an improvement over trump buying witnesses or slipping religious fervor inducing drugs into their food or whatever ye fuck he's doing to get people to back up his bullshit?
Indicting witnesses isn't the fucking high road. Fuck trump, but fuck this bullshit too. This is exactly the sort of shit that "defund the police" types bemoan when it's done to a nobody, but hey, as long as we get trump, it's all fucking good... it's fucking not good...
If the prosecution comes to a witness for the defense and says are you sure you want to stick with your story we have evidence that the opposite happened, that isn't extortion. That is giving a witness the chance to tell the truth.
This is how criminal conspiracies work.
The little guys are asked by the big guy to lie, but some flip to save their own skin.
Stop trying to normalize Trump’s lawlessness.
These mafia tactics don't belong in politics. I'm glad they recognized the guy was being forced to perjury.
That's a lot of words to be wrong, friend-o.
Saying "Are you sure you don't want to revise your testimony, because we have factual evidence that it's false and that may lead to an indictment for perjury." isn't extortion, it's allowing this guy to not loyalty his way into a felony.
Imagine, the police/prosecution use their discretion and don't throw the book at someone and idiots still take exception to it
If the prosecution believes that perjury should be prosecuted, this mans second testimony should have put him in prison, because he either committed perjury previously, or is committing it now.
That's where I step off the bus and say "hey, this is fucked". That's the line for me. You can't base an indictment off testimony that someone made under the auspices of that.
I wildly disagree with it at the bottom too... the "let the little fish testify" isn't better, and I don't support that shit either. This is a little worse though... this fish is either lying or has lied, under oath. He's factually proven that he's committed perjury... If the prosecution is threatening him with perjury, they basically own him, because he's factually demonstrably committed perjury based simply on the existence of two opposing testimonies...
So "say this, or go to prison". That's fucking extortion.
If you're indicted and you did nothing wrong, then what's the problem?
I did everything right and they indicted meeeeeeh
I don't understand. Isn't the way not to be suspected of perjury just not to lie to the court in the first place? It doesn't seem like extortion to me.
I think this was due to the conflict of interest by the old lawyer, who probably told this witness, "Just say you didn't see anything or don't remember and you'll be fine."
It turned out it wasn't fine and the guy found a new lawyer. This new lawyer is being a zealous advocate and trying to keep this guy out of jail.
Exactly! The lawyer was paid for by Trump! The lawyer was never acting in this guy's best interests.
Tell me how this is an improvement over trump buying witnesses or slipping religious fervor inducing drugs into their food or whatever ye fuck he's doing to get people to back up his bullshit?
It's simply about the truth. Merely stating the truth "Are you sure that is going to be your sworn testimony because we have evidence that proves otherwise and lying to a court of law will get you jail time" is not extortion. Not even close.
Lol being extorted.
We should go and give those justice department employees the courage to do the right thing. Just march over there and give them the courage. They just need fucking courage to do the right thing. Someone fucking give them the courage.
Sounds like he got a good lawyer instead of one funded to protect only Trump and nobody else.
What you should have said was nothing.
💀
( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°) Warriors of social justice who use a keyboard.
Seems like the opposite to me. Like he was coerced to lie for his old boss due to the circumstances, especially from being dependant from the legal fund. The prosecutor gave him an out and a chance to break fealty from trump. He probably lied because he thought it was the only way out, and his testimony could be valuable after realizing it is not.
You have to realize that this is how criminal organizations work. The members end up being dependant on the leader and they're scared to tell the truth. It is doubly so when you're very own lawyer is being hired by the mob boss. What a messed up system.
Yes... this guy was most likely compelled by trump to lie. Maybe it was his salary, maybe a nice fat check, maybe threats, maybe he has the weird zealot fascination with trump that some people have for whatever reason.
Then, the prosecution decided that since they are successfully prosecuting false statements as felonies, to the degree of that constituting "high crimes and treason" (because all of this is just an extension of an impeachment attempt), they could throw this guy under the same bus as trump, and threaten him with a major felony charge of lying. They used this to compel him to change his testimony, ostensibly to the truth, but it's still under duress...
He's still being compelled, and is either lying under duress of the former compulsion, or lying under duress of the current compulsion.
He's got two choices of compulsion. One is that he doesn't get money, the other is that he sits in a prison cell for possibly decades. Which one would you pick? The current compulsion for me is definitely far worse, so if faced with a choice, I'd likely go with the one that reduces the chance of decades of imprisonment, especially considering that when he gets out of prison, he'll be broke as fuck anyway... I would lie to avoid prison before I'd lie for money. Would you not?
Not to say that's what happening, but there's no way to know. What I can say with certainty is that hes testified to two opposing stories and one has to be a lie. He has, factually, based only on the evidence, falsified a testimony. Which one though? No way to know for sure, which means he's not a valid witness and nothing he has said is believable. For either side. Fuck anything this guy says, throw it out, there's other evidence, other witnesses, fuck this guy and anything he has to say.
This IS how criminal organizations work, so why is the prosecution doing it? Why is the legal system relying on testimony they've extorted from someone? THAT is actually my only real point tbh. I don't approve of a testimony being made unders duress of the threat of a felony false statement charge... that's fucking extortion and I personally don't think the ends justified the means on that. Throw this testimony out...
Are we planning on indicting everyone who testifies for the defense on fraud charges?
We should indict everyone who lies to a Grand Jury actually. Not sure why this is controversial to you
I guess by your logic Donald Trump is being extorted 91 times.
Haha!
Ah, so that's what bigly means.
If they're lying, and you can prove it, you prosecute them for perjury...
But if you suspect they've got important info, them perjurying them would be a waste. It would be more beneficial to let a witness know that you know they're lying before you prosecute. Give them a chance to straighten out their story, potentially giving you a much larger win than if you'd simply removed them as a witness via perjury. That's exactly what they've done here
My brain isn't advanced enough to make this make any kinda sense at all.
The level of ideological brain worming demonstrated by your post is impressive. Do you ever have doubts, or is this all performative and it’s just larping?
That's an ... interesting take on it, I guess.