Yuscil Taveras is among the little-known people with links to Donald Trump to have come under scrutiny. So far, he’s the only Trump employee known to have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors after facing charges.
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One day in June of last year, at a time when federal investigators were demanding security footage from former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Yuscil Taveras shared an explosive secret.
Mr. Taveras, who ran Mar-a-Lago’s technology department from a cramped work space in the basement of the sprawling Florida property, confided in an office mate that another colleague had just asked him, at Mr. Trump’s request, to delete the footage that investigators were seeking.
This account of Mr. Taveras’s turnabout, drawn from court records and interviews with nearly a dozen people who know him and are involved in the matter, reveals new details of the critical if at first reluctant role he played in helping investigators develop evidence that Mr. Trump and two aides allegedly plotted to destroy security footage showing boxes of classified materials being shuttled in and out of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago.
The sequence of events surrounding the surveillance tapes, as laid out by prosecutors in the indictment and in interviews, fits a common pattern over many years for those in Mr. Trump’s orbit, with some aides rushing to carry out his wishes and others seeking to rein him in to avert legal and political risks.
His situation stands in contrast to a number of people entangled in the Fulton County, Ga., investigation into efforts to reverse Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the state, many of whom have found themselves on their own, battling charges or tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees as witnesses.
Mr. Woodward, who represents Mr. Nauta, argued that after indictments are issued, grand jury proceedings cannot be used “as a subterfuge to place pressure on a witness in order to obtain information,” suggesting that had happened to Mr. Taveras.
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Click here to see the summary
One day in June of last year, at a time when federal investigators were demanding security footage from former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Yuscil Taveras shared an explosive secret.
Mr. Taveras, who ran Mar-a-Lago’s technology department from a cramped work space in the basement of the sprawling Florida property, confided in an office mate that another colleague had just asked him, at Mr. Trump’s request, to delete the footage that investigators were seeking.
This account of Mr. Taveras’s turnabout, drawn from court records and interviews with nearly a dozen people who know him and are involved in the matter, reveals new details of the critical if at first reluctant role he played in helping investigators develop evidence that Mr. Trump and two aides allegedly plotted to destroy security footage showing boxes of classified materials being shuttled in and out of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago.
The sequence of events surrounding the surveillance tapes, as laid out by prosecutors in the indictment and in interviews, fits a common pattern over many years for those in Mr. Trump’s orbit, with some aides rushing to carry out his wishes and others seeking to rein him in to avert legal and political risks.
His situation stands in contrast to a number of people entangled in the Fulton County, Ga., investigation into efforts to reverse Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the state, many of whom have found themselves on their own, battling charges or tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees as witnesses.
Mr. Woodward, who represents Mr. Nauta, argued that after indictments are issued, grand jury proceedings cannot be used “as a subterfuge to place pressure on a witness in order to obtain information,” suggesting that had happened to Mr. Taveras.
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