An Unnamed Employee of Former President Donald Trump Retracts False Testimony, Implicates Trump and Others
An unnamed employee of former President Donald Trump has retracted “false testimony” to a grand jury after changing lawyers, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
The employee, referred to as “Trump Employee 4” in court documents from special counsel Jack Smith’s office, retracted statements from an earlier testimony and gave information implicating Trump and others over alleged efforts to delete security footage at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
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Retraction and New Testimony
The court documents say Trump Employee 4 “repeatedly denied or claimed not to recall” any contacts or conversations about security footage when they testified before a D.C. grand jury in March 2023.
A view of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla.
(Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
However, in July, after being advised that he was a target of the investigation and that his lawyer might have a conflict of interest because of his representation of others in the probe, the witness received a new attorney from the federal defender’s office. This new attorney helped the witness provide information to the Justice Department that implicated Trump and others. This information formed the basis of the revised indictment against Trump, his valet Walt Nauta, and a third defendant, Carlos De Oliveira.
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Presenting New Information
The new information provided by the witness was presented to prosecutors weeks before special counsel Jack Smith secured an updated indictment. This indictment accused Trump, Nauta, and De Oliveira of a plot to delete surveillance video at the Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
Former President Donald Trump sits between his attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro as he faces charges before Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya that he orchestrated a plot to try to overturn his 2020 election loss, at federal court in Washington, U.S. August 3, 2023, in a courtroom sketch. At far left is Special Counsel Jack Smith.
(REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg)
Prosecutors have described the witness interaction and are seeking a hearing in Florida to address potential conflicts of interest involving defense lawyer Stanley Woodward, who represents both Trump Employee 4 and Nauta. This encounter helps explain why prosecutors continued to use a grand jury in Washington to investigate potential false statements, even after securing an indictment in Florida.
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Conflict of Interest
“The target letter to Trump Employee 4 crystallized a conflict of interest arising from Mr. Woodward’s concurrent representation of Trump Employee 4 and Nauta,” prosecutors wrote. They added: “Advising Trump Employee 4 to correct his sworn testimony would result in testimony incriminating Mr. Woodward’s other client, Nauta; but permitting Trump Employee 4’s false testimony to stand uncorrected would leave Trump Employee 4 exposed to criminal charges for perjury.”
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Upcoming Trial and Other Prosecutions
A trial has been set for May 20, 2024, in the classified documents case. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
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Trump is also facing another prosecution by special counsel Jack Smith over efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, as well as a criminal case in Georgia over attempts to subvert that state’s vote and another in New York in connection with hush money payments to a porn actor.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.