According to a new Rolling Stone report, some of Donald Trump’s lawyers have raised concerns about Joe Tacopina, the attorney co-leading the former president’s defense in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office case.
Trump was indicted last week by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over his role in a 2016 payment to Stormy Daniels in exchange for the porn star’s silence on an alleged affair. In the lead-up to the indictment, Trump indicated he was aware charges were looming, and Tacopina made a spate of sometimes contentious media appearances to discuss the case.
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Citing a source familiar with the matter and another person close to Trump, Rolling Stone reported that Trump’s other current lawyers had privately described Tacopina as “dumb” and a “loudmouth.” Trump’s attorneys and advisers have warned the former president to be wary of Tacopina and that he can’t trust his loyalty, the sources said. Another source familiar with the matter called him “such a frickin’ idiot,” Rolling Stone reported.
In a statement, Tacopina told the magazine: “When anonymous sources make comments criticizing others, it reveals jealousy and cowardice. Anyone who takes a look at my track record of trial success and the results I have achieved for my clients couldn’t seriously criticize my work or my intelligence.”
Tacopina has a record of representing cops and high-profile clients, including rapper Meek Mill and baseball player Alex Rodriguez. He’s also spent more than a decade as a top executive across several Italian soccer clubs and worked as a pundit in American media.
During appearances on CNN in 2018 as a legal commentator, Tacopina made comments about Trump and the Daniels hush money payment that conflict with the defense he’s presented since taking on Trump as a client.
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In those appearances, he suggested he believed that Trump did have an affair with Daniels and that the payment “could be looked as an in-kind contribution at the time of the election,” which could be “a real problem.”
But now, Tacopina has reversed course, characterizing the payment to Daniels as “extortion,” denying Trump had the affair and dismissing the possibility of campaign finance violations.
