WASHINGTON — A witness within the prison case in opposition to Donald Trump over the hoarding of categorized paperwork retracted “prior false testimony” after switching attorneys final month and supplied new data that implicated the previous president, the Justice Department stated Tuesday.
The new data from the witness, a Trump staffer recognized solely because the director of knowledge know-how at Mar-a-Lago, was introduced to prosecutors weeks earlier than particular counsel Jack Smith secured an up to date indictment accusing Trump and two others in a plot to delete surveillance video on the Florida property.
Prosecutors stated in a courtroom submitting Tuesday that the witness informed a grand jury in Washington in March that he couldn’t recall any conversations concerning the safety footage.
But in July, after being suggested by prosecutors that he was a goal of the investigation and after being suggested that his lawyer might need a battle of curiosity due to his illustration of others within the probe, the witness acquired a brand new legal professional from the federal defender’s workplace and supplied the Justice Department with data that helped type the idea of the revised indictment in opposition to Trump, his valet Walt Nauta and a 3rd defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, the courtroom submitting says.
Prosecutors described the witness interplay in a submitting that seeks a listening to in Florida about potential conflicts of curiosity involving the protection lawyer, Stanley Woodward, who additionally represents Nauta. Woodward declined to remark when reached by The Associated Press. They stated that encounter helps clarify why they continued to make use of a grand jury in Washington to research potential false statements in that district even after they’d secured an indictment in Florida, the place Mar-a-Lago is situated.
“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.”
A trial has been set for May 20, 2024, within the categorized paperwork case. Trump has pleaded not responsible and denied any wrongdoing.
Trump is dealing with one other prosecution by Smith, over efforts to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election, in addition to a prison case in Georgia over makes an attempt to subvert that state’s vote and one other in New York in reference to hush cash funds to a porn actor.
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