“Damning new evidence”: Expert says Trump employee “had second thoughts” after replacing lawyer

Yuscil Taveras, the Mar-a-Lago IT employee who oversees the resort's surveillance cameras, provided information to special counsel Jack Smith's team after he replaced his Trump PAC-funded lawyer when he received a target letter in the classified documents investigation, according to CNN.

Taveras, who has not been indicted alongside fellow Trump employees Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira despite receiving a target letter, met with prosecutors after former President Donald Trump's initial indictment in the case, sources told CNN.

Taveras changed his lawyer after receiving the target letter because his attorney, Stanley Woodward, also represented Nauta, which presented a conflict, sources told the outlet.

Though it is "unclear" if Taveras is cooperating with prosecutors, some of the new allegations against Trump that were included in the superseding indictment last week were based, at least in part, on information Taveras provided to prosecutors in that interview, according to the report.

The superseding indictment refers to Taveras as "Trump Employee 4."

Taveras had an exchange with De Oliveira, who was indicted last week, on June 27, 2022, the same day that Trump was hit with a subpoena for surveillance footage. De Oliveira asked to have a private conversation in an "audio closet" with Taveras where he questioned how long Mar-a-Lago security footage is stored and whether it could be deleted, according to the indictment.

Taveras said he "would not know how to do that and that he did not believe that he would have the rights to do that," according to the indictment.

De Oliveira told him "the boss" wanted it deleted, prosecutors allege.

Taveras' testimony could be "crucial" for Smith's prosecutors in establishing a conspiracy to delete the footage and obstruct the investigation, according to The New York Times. But the Trump Organization ultimately turned over the tapes and the indictment does not accuse any employees of destroying the footage. Taveras remains a Mar-a-Lago employee, according to the Times, but it is "unclear who is paying his legal bills."

"Taveras was represented by Stan Woodward, Walt Nauta's longtime attorney," tweeted MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang. "It was only after he retained the second lawyer that Taveras spoke to investigators."

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel  Bob Mueller's team, added that "an independent lawyer can make a huge difference."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

"What Taveras did reminds me of the move Cassidy Hutchinson made during the January 6th hearings," wrote former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. "Both had second thoughts about their interviews with investigators (accompanied by a Trump-affiliated attorney), so they found new lawyers and came forward with damning new evidence."

Mariotti also wondered whether De Oliveira and Nauta would "flip" now that they've seen their colleague escape charges.

"Who's going to flip first? Is one going to flip against Trump? Are they both going to flip?" he said on MSNBC. "There's a dynamic now where Walt Nauta, he can't just be assured of the fact that he is going to be the low man in the trial. Now you have two potential employees, and neither of them know what the other might do."

But CNN legal analyst Carrie Cordero predicted that the opportunity for the two indicted aides to cooperate with prosecutors "probably has passed."

"At this point it does seem like the special counsel has enough information, they've gone ahead with charging, it seems like they probably have given those individuals time to cooperate in the past, and it's sort of unclear whether at this point the special counsel would need their testimony or whether they just now are part of the criminal prosecution itself," she said.