Prosecutors: Trump Mar-a-Lago security aide flipped after changing lawyers
Prosecutors: Trump Mar-a-Lago security aide flipped after changing lawyers
Special counsel Jack Smith’s team revealed the details of the employee’s about-face in a new filing.
A Trump employee who monitored security cameras at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate abruptly retracted his earlier grand jury testimony and implicated Trump and others in obstruction of justice just after switching from an attorney paid for by a Trump political action committee to a lawyer from the federal defender’s office in Washington, prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday.
So the PAC was paying for his first lawyer.. The whole point of the PAC system is that the candidate doesn't control it, right? How does a PAC get held accountable for witness tampering?
Trump has been doing this from early on in his presidency with other lawyers and people close to him. His PAC has always been there to pay for all the legal fees and they share the same lawyers then pass on the info between each other to get their clients stories straight and locked in.
Candidates actually can and do control PACs... up to a certain point. For example, the entire reason that Mike Huckabee keeps running for offices he knows he will never get past the very, very early primary stage, is because he can get his PAC funded and he can enrich himself and his family. Did you know that Mike Huckabee pays his children six figures a year for "roles" they hold in his PAC? That includes now-governor (barf) Sarah Huckabee-Sanders.
Trump took it to the extreme, though. But it is completely normal and legal. It is why PACs were always a bullshit proposition. It is also why people hold off so long on officially declaring candidacy and actually filing the paperwork until the deadline because that starts the clock as to when they can no longer directly personally control PACs and directly profit off of them.
Never use a lawyer being paid by someone else with a major interest in the case.
Unless your interests are the same.
Another defendent? Probably never. But like a family member or friend that needs your name to not be dirt? Maybe.
In a case involving criminal collusion, courts should require all defendants to have separate council. It's obvious letting the most powerful member being prosecuted paying for the defense of the lessor defendants is a problem.
Legal question.
The lawyer was paid by the PAC to represent the employee. Who is the lawyer's client? The employee or the PAC? Could the lawyer be in trouble for putting the PAC's needs ahead of the employee's?
The client is the employee. The lawyer's ethical duty is to the employee even though he is being paid by someone else. Same situation when your insurance company hires a lawyer to defend you in a lawsuit.
Yes, I was thinking that they were cutting it pretty thin not telling the employee to cut a deal. Hopefully, this will be another case of MAGA [Make Attorneys Get Attorneys]
Ianal, but I think they have a responsibility to at least let the defendant know about their options. Other than that, they can have a strategy or suggest the defendant accept the less good options.
Sounds like this guy realized that their "help" wasn't in his own interest.
Yes, that's malpractice.
Lol and the Trump lawyer wants to exclude his testimony as a witness because it's a conflict of interest since he was his former lawyer. What nonsense.
This Trump lawyer needs a lawyer now because he definitely broke laws by directing his client to lie.
Make Attorneys Get Attorneys
"Trump world" legal representation is a problem. They'll pressure you into lying for them.
First to flip gets the best deal.... and we have a winner.
So this guy is getting disbarred for telling his clients to commit perjury right?
My guess is that a deal was struck before the flip was flopped.
"we'll give you better representation and a better shot at fighting these lesser charges if you flop the flip" - the DoJ, probably
If I was to subborn perjury I'd go to jail, not lose my job.
The first of many.
This is going to be interesting.
LOL.