Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman said that those who want to cooperate with federal prosecutors investigating former President Donald Trump‘s handling of classified materials “need to come in fast” in order to “cut a deal” with the Justice Department.
Litman’s comments, made as part of a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, were in response to reports that a Mar-a-Lago employee who monitored the security cameras at Trump’s estate has apparently flipped on the former president.
According to a court filing by Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday, the security worker previously identified in court documents as “Trump Employee 4” has retracted his initial grand jury testimony after switching from an attorney paid for by a Trump PAC to a public defender in Washington, D.C. The employee, who has been identified as Yuscil Taveras, originally testified that he was unaware of any efforts to erase videos stored on the security IT server.
“Immediately after receiving new counsel, [Taveras] retracted his prior false testimony and provided information that implicated [Walter] Nauta, [Carlos] De Oliveira, and Trump in efforts to delete security camera footage, as set forth in the superseding indictment,” read Smith’s filing.
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Litman posted Tuesday evening that De Oliveira and Nauta were “now in huge jeopardy” in light of Taveras’ testimony, adding, “This is how cases are made.”
“With good and independent counsel, they would’ve known better from the start,” Litman said in a separate post on X. “But it’s taking the harsh reality of actual charges to make defendants view their positions soberly. All the better for Justice, all the worse for Trump.”
“One thing prosecutors tell would-be cooperators: you need to come in fast if you want to cut a deal,” Litman wrote in a following post. “Others are out there who can also give us the evidence, which would make your truthful testimony far less valuable.”
Smith’s filing on Tuesday was in response to a demand from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointee who is overseeing the classified documents case in Florida federal court. Cannon had asked prosecutors why they were continuing to collect evidence from a Washington, D.C., grand jury after one in Florida had voted in June to bring charges against Trump.
De Oliveira was added to the indictment late last month as part of the additional charges brought against Trump and his original co-defendant, Nauta. De Oliveira is accused of attempting to help hide the sensitive documents from prosecutors alongside Nauta, as well as pressuring Taveras to wipe the surveillance video from Mar-a-Lago’s servers after federal prosecutors requested the footage in a subpoena last June.
All three defendants have pleaded not guilty to the Justice Department’s charges, and Trump has repeatedly called the investigation “election interference” in light of his 2024 reelection campaign.
Newsweek emailed Trump’s campaign Tuesday evening for comment.
