Things are getting even worse still for scandal-plagued former President Donald Trump, as New York Times correspondent, CNN analyst, and so-called “Trump Whisperer” Maggie Haberman breaks bombshell reporting on a target letter sent to a “low-level Trump employee” by Garland-appointed DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith as he continues to steamroll ahead with his classified document investigation into the ex-president, despite his recent explosive 37-count federal indictment against Trump. According to Haberman, not only could the low-level individual become a third defendant in the stolen classified government documents investigation, they could ultimately “flip” on Donald Trump in a desperate effort to save themselves.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, ABC News broke reporting on Smith’s newest target letter against one of Trump’s employees. Within hours, NYT’s Ben Protess, Maggie Haberman, and Alan Feuer dropped their own reporting, expanding on the ABC report. By yesterday evening, Haberman was on CNN’s Anderson Copper 360, where she hashed out the details on the new development, as Cooper questioned what this all means, and if we will see this new employee “flip” on Donald Trump when the dust settles.
Mediaite reported the transcript from last night’s episode:
COOPER: So what do you know about this employee, who according to your reporting, received a target letter from Jack Smith.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: This is a low-level employee, Anderson, but it is somebody who was before the federal grand jury in May and prosecutors have continued to try to drill down on the question of whether anyone interfered with security footage, surveillance footage that the Justice Department was seeking and whether everything was complied with and whether statements have all been accurate.
And look, we don’t know whether this person will be charged or not, but it really does underscore that this investigation did not end with the indictment of Donald Trump and Walt Nauta.
This investigation is continuing. We don’t know what other turns it may take, but a bunch of subpoenas had been sent in recent weeks for additional documents and more witnesses had been brought forward.
COOPER: Do you have a sense of how wide the net is? I mean how many employees the former president had been questioned or contacted by the special counsel’s office?
HABERMAN: It’s a lot and it’s a wide range, Anderson, between Trump Organization, Mar-a-Lago specifically, people on his campaign, people from his former White House, people who worked for him at the time, people have been asked questions, you know, going back to how he kept records and his practices.
It’s a very, very extensive investigation, which we could get a sense of from just the sheer volume of discovery material that was turned over to the defense team.
So I anticipate that when it becomes clear how many witnesses we’re talking about, we know the government has a list of 84 witnesses that they are interested in talking to. We’ll see how the Trump team handles it. I think it is going to be surprising to people just how wide this net was.
COOPER: And is it possible? I mean, do they send a target letter intending to — I mean, letting them know the person that they may actually be prosecuted? Or is it also to possibly encourage somebody to flip?
HABERMAN: Look, there’s always a hope, I think for prosecutors that somebody who is facing potential charges could end up cooperating whether that actually means flipping or not in an investigation, and so that happens up until the point that there’s charges.
But when a target letter is sent, it doesn’t always result in charges, but it usually means charges and recall that Donald Trump was sent a target letter before he was — excuse me — before he was indicted by the Justice Department in June.”
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