First to flip: Trump witness recants

In a filing made public Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith told a federal court that a key witness in the Mar-a-Lago documents case has flipped, recanting previous testimony and implicating Donald Trump.

Known in the indictment as Trump Employee 4, the witness is a Mar-a-Lago information technology worker. Yuscil Taveras, the director of information technology at Mar-a-Lago, entered into the agreement after receiving a target letter from Smith in June warning him he was likely to be charged with perjury. In March, Smith said, Taveras gave false testimony. He changed his testimony regarding efforts to delete security camera footage at Trump's Florida club in July after switching from a lawyer paid for by Trump's Save America PAC to a public defender. He was previously being represented by Walt Nauta's lawyer Stanley Woodward.

"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.

Federal public defenders are free and they won't make you go to prison to protect some idiot. https://t.co/Pdbhr98VyA
— Andrew Fleischman (@ASFleischman) August 22, 2023

The technical legal term I would use to describe this brief newly filed by the Government in the Mar-a-Lago case is 𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙮 𝙨**𝙩. https://t.co/M3reXbmk4R
— Xeorge Xonway (@gtconway3d) August 22, 2023

This is a very significant development.

Trump already faced overwhelming evidence in the Mar-a-Lago case. But this flipper may change the calculus for Trump’s co-defendants.

They are much younger than Trump, and they face the prospect of years in prison if convicted. https://t.co/hpPhbiqf2Z
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 22, 2023

Wow. Time to disbar Woodward. https://t.co/7qbYy00HZp
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) August 22, 2023

"Sounds very much like organized crime," wrote national security attorney Mark Zaid, reacting to the breaking news.

Trump, Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago, have all pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case. Taveras, for his part, is the first person known to have entered into such an agreement with Smith in either of Smith's investigations of Trump. Cassidy Hutchinson, a Trump White House staffer, flipped in the same manner — after switching to independent counsel on the eve of the Jan. 6 select committee hearings. Her previous lawyer had deep Trump World connections.