Experts: Trump employee “almost certainly cooperating” — and may have “incriminating” evidence

A Mar-a-Lago employee responsible for overseeing the surveillance camera at the Florida club received a letter from federal authorities last month indicating that he is a potential target in the ongoing criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office — but he hasn’t been indicted alongside other aides that allegedly took part in efforts to obstruct the government probe, according to CNN. 

Yuscil Taveras, who has been identified as “Trump Employee 4” in the updated indictment, received the letter when Trump was first indicted in June. 

Though it remains unclear whether Taveras is cooperating with prosecutors, certain new allegations against Trump included in a recent superseding indictment filed last week were partially derived from the information he provided during that interview, according to CNN. 

“Taveras is almost certainly cooperating because if he was served a target letter, he wouldn’t talk to the government unless he was proffering evidence or attempting to cooperate,” former federal prosecutor Christine Adams, a partner at Los Angeles-based Adams, Duerk & Kamenstein, told Salon. 

Otherwise, Taveras wouldn’t want to talk to the government because anything he said could be used against him, she added. “The government tries to protect the privacy of people who are not charged.”

The indictment alleged that Taveras was approached by a fellow employee, Carlos De Oliveira, asking him how to delete surveillance video at Mar-a-Lago in late June 2022, following a subpoena for security footage.

De Oliveira, who is a third defendant in the case, said “the boss” wanted the footage deleted after 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.

Prosecutors claimed De Oliveira insisted “the boss” wanted the server deleted and pressed Taveras asking the IT director, “what are we going to do?”

Unlike De Oliveira and Trump’s longtime valet Walt Nauta, Taveras is not currently facing charges in the classified documents case despite having been informed he is a target in the probe, CNN reported. 

Taveras can be useful in the case as he can authenticate the surveillance footage that prosecutors will use in court, particularly the surveillance footage of Nauta and De Oliveira moving boxes, Adams pointed out.

“Prosecutors can correlate that footage to what was occurring around the same time, which was that Trump and Nauta had talked on the phone before the boxes were moved, and before an attorney was scheduled to arrive at Mar-a-Lago to review the documents,” Adams said.

Since prosecutors don’t have direct evidence of what Trump and Nauta discussed, they have to use circumstantial evidence to prove that Trump told Nauta to move the boxes, she added.

“Testimony from Taveras authenticating surveillance footage of the boxes being moved and authenticating the time stamps for when the video was captured would be key to proving that Trump ordered the boxes to be moved to hide evidence,” Adams said. “It’s the timing that matters.”

---

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

---

Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira are all charged with two counts of obstruction stemming from allegations that they tried to delete surveillance video at Mar-a-Lago. 

The Trump campaign issued a statement after the indictment was released on Thursday saying that the charges were designed to “harass” Trump and his supporters. 

“Deranged Jack Smith knows that they have no case and is casting about for any way to salvage their illegal witch hunt and to get someone other than Donald Trump to run against Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump’s campaign team said.

Taveras changed lawyers after receiving the target letter. His attorney Stan Woodward, who was paid by a Trump-aligned PAC, also represented Nauta, which presented a conflict, sources told CNN.

“The government needs other people who can testify to what the defendants did and what they said,” Adams said. “Taveras was at the property. He might have observed other events connected with moving the boxes or he may have been present during other conversations that could shed light on the intent of removing the documents. He might have incriminating text messages.”