CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins grilled former Trump attorney Jim Trusty over whether former President Donald Trump is “trying to influence witnesses” by paying for their lawyers.
Trusty represented Trump in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into classified documents under the Espionage Act — until shortly after former President Donald Trump announced his own indictment.
On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins conducted a thorough grilling of Trusty on a number of topics — including an exchange in which she knocked down Trusty’s responses to the claim that Trump is “influencing” witnesses by pointing out uat least one witness “changed his testimony” after changing lawyers:
COLLINS: Well, I understand, you don’t like what you say are leaks. I mean, this is just reporting that CNN has done on this. I mean, there are so many witnesses potentially in this. There’s a lot of people to obviously talk to, about what could have potentially happened here.But when you look at this, a lot of these people still work at Mar-a- Lago. I mean, Trump employee number four, Yuscil Taveras just recently resigned, we are told, and Trump was not happy when he found out that he was still working at the club. But he was someone, Jim, who had a Trump-paid attorney, and then changed to a non-Trump-paid attorney, and he changed his testimony.Do you think that the
former President is trying to potentially influence, any of the witnesses, by paying for their attorneys?TRUSTY: No. Everything you just said goes to the fact that there’s self-serving leaks, coming out of one side of the aisle. It’s really kind of amazing. And no real — no real respect for the privacy of these individuals.Look, it’s not uncommon, in a widespread investigation, of any sort, criminal or administrative, for there to be a group of attorneys, that share information, under a joint defense agreement, have some sense of what’s going on with the investigation, know where there’s things that can be litigated, even pre-indictment. And so, look, paying for attorneys means nothing. The reality, the backstory, the truly horrific, in terms of what this purported conflict was, it revolves around that witness, is that the Department of Justice cannot stand Stanley Woodward, one of the attorneys in this case, because Stanley blew the whistle, on a DOJ official, essentially extorting him, over a pending judgeship, to flip Walt Nauta. I mean, that’s been publicly reported.That is a dark moment, in DOJ history, that they want to gloss over, and then go after all the attorneys, saying there’s something wrong with attorneys, either representing multiple clients, or sharing information.COLLINS: Yes. I know you –TRUSTY: It’s an absurd distraction.COLLINS: In our last interview, you brought that same instanceup. I said, we had not seen any evidence of that. We haven’t really seen it brought up as an issue. I mean, Stan Woodward is still representing several of the clients. He’s representing a lot of them, to where they think it could actually be, prosecutors have argued it would be a conflict of interest.But on Yuscil Taveras, I mean, you talk about it’s not unusual, for attorneys, to share information, when they have multiple, potential witnesses, or co-defendants. That’s true. But he changed his testimony, in a damning way, for the former President that led to another co-defendant being indicted, because he went, from a Trump- paid attorney, to his own attorney.TRUSTY: Well, I think, you’re looping together a whole bunch of things that makes for a great story. But I’m not here to –COLLINS: But don’t you see –TRUSTY: — to even –COLLINS: You can see how there are questions about Trump’s influence, when he pays for the attorneys, given –TRUSTY: Well I –COLLINS: — a witness changed his testimony.TRUSTY: I’m aware there are people that push those questions. I think there’s a bigger backdrop, a bigger context, to what’s going on, when it comes to some of the lawyers, being challenged, by DOJ.
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.