The dam is starting to give way:
A witness in the criminal case against Donald Trump over the hoarding of classified documents retracted “prior false testimony” after switching lawyers last month and provided new information that implicated the former president, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
The statements from the witness, a Trump staffer identified in court papers as the director of information technology at Mar-a-Lago, was presented to prosecutors weeks before special counsel Jack Smith secured an updated indictment accusing Trump and two others in a plot to delete surveillance video at the Florida property.
Prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday that the witness told a grand jury in Washington in March that he could not recall any conversations about the security footage
But in July, after being warned by prosecutors that he was a target of the investigation and after being advised that his lawyer might have a conflict of interest because of his representation of others in the probe, the witness received a new attorney from the federal defender's office and provided the Justice Department with information that helped form the basis of the revised indictment against Trump, his valet Walt Nauta and a third defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, the court filing says.
This director of information at Mar-a-Lago is the "Trump Employee 4" identified in earlier filings.
The testimony of this key witness will make it harder for Trumpist judge Aileen Cannon to succeed in her goal of exonerating the Malignant Loser. Most legal experts have said that, even without this testimony, the Special Counsel's case was a slam dunk.
Another issue Cannon used to try to de- rail/ de- legitimatize the case was responded to as well:
In the filing, the Justice Department also sought to explain its use of grand juries in both Washington and Florida, where charges were ultimately filed. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Florida judge presiding over the case, had earlier asked about the legal propriety of using grand juries in both districts.
Prosecutors said they continued using the Washington grand jury even after charges were filed in Florida for the express purpose of investigating potential false statements by witnesses in Washington. The Washington grand jury completed its term last week, they said.
Will that satisfy Cannon? Hard to say. But any more "questionable" calls from Cannon will possibly lead to a motion to have her removed from the trial.
In the meantime, the legal nooses keep tightening around the thick neck of the Malignant Loser.
BONUS: Not to put too fine a point on it, but this observation from NBC's Ken Dilanian nails it--
"It's like a mob movie," he concluded. "Lawyers being paid by President Trump representing witnesses, suddenly when one gets a different lawyer they utterly change their stories and start remembering things they didn't before."
(Photo: the scene of the crime(s) / via CNN)
