Prosecutors publicly confirmed past Washington Post reporting in a court filing last week, saying Trump technology worker Yuscil Taveras lied to the feds at first about what he knew about alleged efforts to delete security footage at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and private club.
Taveras initially told investigators he had no information about any such efforts, the filing said. But after Trump and his personal assistant, Waltine “Walt” Nauta, were charged in June with obstructing federal efforts to retrieve classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, the court filing says, Taveras changed his lawyer — and then told a very different story.
He provided testimony implicating Trump, Nauta and a third employee in a scheme to delete security camera footage. That’s important, because the cameras captured the two workers moving around boxes of government documents as officials were trying to get them back. Prosecutors used the information from Taveras to file additional charges in July against Trump and Nauta, and to indict the other employee, Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, the court filing said.
The official focus of the court filing that told this story was whether there is a potential conflict of interest for Stanley Woodward, the lawyer who is representing Nauta — and is being paid by Trump’s PAC — but previously also represented Taveras, who is now a key witness. Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the Florida case, has not yet weighed in.
In other news, Cannon had previously scheduled an Aug. 25 hearing to discuss how to handle the mountains of classified evidence in this case. But she later rescheduled that hearing and said it will not be open to the public. The court docket does not say when the rescheduled hearing will occur.
Prosecutors have already handed over their nonclassified evidence for Trump and his co-defendants’ lawyers to review, according to previous court filings. But they have apparently not given them the classified evidence at the crux of the case because they have not yet settled on how that material should be handled. Cannon will ultimately determine the conditions. You can read more about the outstanding disagreements here.
