Jack Smith Admits Mistake in Trump Mar

Special counsel Jack Smith and his team admitted to a slip-up in the Mar-a-Lago documents case discovery process and have taken the steps needed to rectify the problem.

Smith and the Department of Justice (DOJ) last week filed a superseding indictment in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, adding new charges against former President Donald Trump and a new co-defendant. Trump was hit with three more felony counts for allegedly asking Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, to find a way to delete surveillance footage that had been requested by the DOJ. De Oliveira was also named as a third co-defendant in the case, alongside Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta.

In addition to the new charges, Trump faces over 30 felony counts for willfully mishandling classified documents containing sensitive national security information in violation of the Espionage Act. The charges represent the first criminal charges for a former president in U.S. history. Trump and Nauta pleaded not guilty to the initial charges, with the former calling the investigation a politically motivated attempt to derail his 2024 presidential campaign.

On Monday, in a letter signed by Smith and others, the team handling the investigation reported that it had provided additional materials, including surveillance footage to Trump's legal team, as part of the case's discovery process.

The letter explained that the materials were not previously provided by mistake, realizing the error as it prepared to submit the superseding indictment. The materials were originally obtained by the government in May, with the DOJ attesting in court on July 18 that all necessary files had been turned over, which it said in hindsight was "therefore incorrect."

"Included in Production 3 is additional CCTV footage from The Mar-a-Lago Club that the Government obtained from the Trump Organization on May 9 and May 12, 2023, in response to a grand jury subpoena served on April 27," the letter explained. "On July 27, as part of the preparation for the superseding indictment coming later that day and the discovery production for Defendant De Oliveira, the Government learned that this footage had not been processed and uploaded to the platform established for the defense to view the subpoenaed footage. The Government's representation at the July 18 hearing that all surveillance footage the Government had obtained pre-indictment had been produced was therefore incorrect."

Newsweek reached out to legal experts via email for comment.

In the superseding indictment from last week, reference was also made to "Trump Employee 4," who CNN later identified as Yuscil Taveras, the Mar-a-Lago employee in charge of security cameras. Taveras was reportedly asked by De Oliveira if security footage could be deleted and advised that "the boss" wanted it done.

Despite receiving a target letter in the case, Taveras has not been named as a co-defendant in the case. Legal experts have weighed in, suggesting that this is because he is cooperating with investigators.