Let the Flipping Begin: Key Witness in Classified Docs Case Turns Against Trump

A Mar-a-Lago employee has changed his testimony in the indictment against Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents, a sign that the former president’s troubles are about to grow even further.

A late-Tuesday filing from special counsel Jack Smith revealed that a key witness, who has been identified as Mar-a-Lago information technology worker Yuscil Taveras, recanted his testimony denying that there had been any conversations about security footage that prosecutors subpoenaed in 2022 as part of the investigation.

Taveras was assigned a new public defender in July, replacing his Trump-appointed lawyer, and “immediately after receiving new counsel, Trump Employee 4 retracted his prior false testimony and provided information that implicated Nauta, De Oliveira, and Trump in efforts to delete security camera footage,” the filing said, referring to Trump and his two co-defendants.

Trump was charged in Florida with keeping national defense secrets, making false statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, among other things, for hoarding classified materials at Mar-a-Lago. His body man Walt Nauta and a Mar-a-Lago employee named Carlos De Oliveira have also been charged. All three men are accused of trying to destroy evidence, including attempting to delete security footage off a server.

Taveras provided his original testimony when he was represented by Stanley Woodward, who also represents Nauta. Prosecutors raised concerns in July that Woodward representing a defendant and a witness could create a conflict of interest. The chief judge presiding over Trump’s federal indictment case in Washington offered to assign a federal public defender to Taveras, and Taveras accepted.

Taveras’s flip is a major point for special counsel Smith’s team. Smith has sought to prove that Trump not only knew that he was wrong to keep classified documents but also tried to cover up his actions. Taveras’s new testimony directly implicates Trump in the cover-up.

It is possible that Taveras’s testimony won’t be allowed in court, though. Woodward argued that it is not allowed to have two grand juries weigh in on a single case, referring to the Florida and Washington grand juries. He asked Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the Mar-a-Lago case, to strike Taveras’s testimony.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, has yet to rule on the issue. But she has previously made decisions that tip significantly in Trump’s favor.

Vivek Ramaswamy is desperately trying to walk back his comments that the U.S. government was involved in the 9/11 attack. But The Atlantic has the receipts.

Ramaswamy is under fire over a profile published Monday in The Atlantic, in which he spouts conspiracy theories about January 6 and 9/11, including wondering how many federal agents “were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers.” He later doubled down on the comments during an interview with CNN.

The presidential hopeful has spent all of Monday and Tuesday denying he made the comments and accusing The Atlantic of taking his words out of context. So The Atlantic released the audio recording of Ramaswamy’s interview with reporter John Hendrickson. And the quotes that the magazine decided not to include are even worse.

At one point, Ramaswamy says government agents incited the January 6 insurrection, which is not true. “Why can the government not be transparent about something that we’re using? Terrorists, or the kind of tactics used to fight terrorists,” he said.

“There’s very little evidence of people being arrested for being armed that day. Most of the people who were armed, I assume the federal officers who were out there were armed,” he said shortly after. This is also false: At least 13 people arrested in connection with the riot were charged with illegal gun possession. Several people have admitted they were carrying a firearm on Capitol property.

Later, Hendrickson pointed out that the country is generally united in its opinion on 9/11. Ramaswamy replied, “I would take the truth about 9/11. I mean, I am not questioning what we—this is not something I’m staking anything out on. But I want the truth about 9/11.”

Even with the truth staring him in the face, Ramaswamy has continued to spread conspiracies about his own conspiracy theories. “As you probably have experienced with the left-wing media as well, The Atlantic’s purposefully really scripted out something that was taken in a very different context,” he told Fox News.

Ramaswamy is no stranger to spreading conspiracies. Last week, he blamed the tragic wildfire in Hawaii on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. His other major talking points include battling “wokeness,” taking away rights, and, apparently, caving to Russia and China.

Donald Trump is joking about fleeing to Russia after receiving a $200,000 bond for his release from Fulton County Jail, following charges of trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

Trump took to Truth Social on Monday night to argue the steep price set for his release was because law enforcement feared he would share a “gold domed suite” with Vladimir Putin.

“The failed District Attorney of Fulton County (Atlanta), Fani Willis, insisted on a $200,000 Bond from me. I assume, therefore, that she thought I was a “flight” risk,” Trump wrote. “I’d fly far away, maybe to Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, share a gold domed suite with Vladimir, never to be seen or heard from again.”

The former president’s love for the Russian authoritarian autocrat is no secret, so the post comes across more as longing than anything else.

Maybe what Trump’s really upset about is the stipulations attached to the bond agreement. His bond agreement warns Trump not to use social media to intimidate any co-defendants or witnesses in the case. That includes “direct or indirect threats.” This may be hard for Trump, who regularly posts tirades on Truth Social.

Trump has already agreed to turn himself in on Thursday. It is unclear as yet whether he will put up the cash or raise money through one of his political fundraising committees.

Also on Tuesday, Trump’s co-defendant former lawyer John Eastman officially surrendered to authorities in Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election.

The Biden administration on Tuesday officially launched a new income-driven student loan repayment program, just months after the Supreme Court struck down its student loan forgiveness initiative. The White House is billing it as the “most affordable student loan plan ever.”

The Saving on a Valuable Education plan allows for millions of borrowers to have their monthly payments reduced based on income and family size, caps interest accrual, and forgives leftover balances after a number of years.

Many borrowers, such as a single person who earns less than $32,800 a year or a family of four earning $67,500 or less per year, could even qualify for $0 monthly payments.

“This will allow them to focus on food, rent, and other basic needs instead of loan payments,” the White House said in a statement.

“Borrowers will see their total payments per dollar borrowed fall by 40%. Borrowers with the lowest projected lifetime earnings will see payments per dollar borrowed fall by 83%, while those in the top would only see a 5% reduction,” the White House added.

A four-year public university graduate can save up to $2,000 per year, according to White House estimates.

The program does not deliver student loan forgiveness at once, as Biden initially sought in his initial plan. The hope for the new repayment program is that some student loan debt can be forgiven more slowly but without interest getting out of hand.

Borrowers can enroll now on StudentAid.gov/SAVE. More benefits of the program are to be launched in July 2024.

Donald Trump’s former lawyer John Eastman was granted a delay to his disbarment trial in California—but only so he could surrender to authorities in Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Eastman surrendered to Georgia state authorities Tuesday morning, as his legal issues continue to pile up.

The California bar association opened disbarment proceedings against Eastman in January, for helping Trump spread election fraud falsehoods, including at the January 6, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C., that turned into the insurrection at the Capitol. His trial was set to begin Tuesday. But State Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland announced she would reschedule Tuesday and Wednesday’s court sessions.

“The court is willing to make certain changes in this week’s trial schedule in order to accommodate Dr. Eastman’s surrender in Fulton County, Georgia,” she wrote in a new ruling late Monday.

Eastman is one of 18 co-defendants charged alongside Trump in Georgia for trying to subvert the state’s election results. When he surrendered on Tuesday, he claimed in a statement that the indictment “should never have been brought” and was actually targeting “attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients.”

As if Eastman didn’t have enough legal troubles, he had previously asked the bar court to delay his trial because he believed he would be criminally charged by special counsel Jack Smith. Eastman ultimately was not charged, but he has been identified as one of the unnamed co-conspirators in Smith’s indictment against Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Eastman helped lead Trump’s legal efforts to undermine the election results and prevent certification of the votes, including by appealing directly to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He also helped try to implement the plan to create slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states that Joe Biden had won.