Former Trump lawyer says it’s ‘ridiculous’ to say Biden was involved in hush money prosecution
Joe Tacopina, who once served on Trump's legal team, said that the president isn't involved in the New York City prosecution.
WASHINGTON — A former member of Donald Trump’s legal team undermined one of the former president’s frequent talking points — saying that he doesn’t think President Joe Biden had anything to do with the prosecution in his hush money case.
Joe Tacopina, who represented Trump during the arraignment in the New York hush money trial and in the civil suit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, left his legal team in January.
He offered a broad dismissal of Trump’s repeated claim that the case was brought by Biden in a bid to harm his political rival.
“This is a state case. This is different than the [special counsel] Jack Smith cases,” Tacopina said on MSNBC. “This is not a federal prosecution. Joe Biden or anyone from his Justice Department has absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan District Attorney office, they have no jurisdiction over him, they have no contact with him, they have no control certainly over him. So to say that Joe Biden brought this case is one of the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. We know that’s not the case and even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case.”
A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump was accused of trying to hide the payments to reimburse his former fixer Michael Cohen who paid $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence in the final days of the 2016 election.
Trump, who has also denied the affair with Daniels, has vowed to appeal the jury’s decision and insist that the prosecution was purely political.
“This is all done by Biden and his people,” Trump said Friday at the beginning of a news conference. “This is done by Washington. No one has ever seen anything like this.”
He has sought to depict himself as the victim of political vendetta, arguing that Biden is behind the other criminal charges he faces, including for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and for the classified documents that remained in his possession after leaving office.
He has offered no evidence about Biden’s connections to his charges, all of which he has pleaded not guilty to. Biden has said little, arguing that he has let the Justice Department work without his influence and pointing to the independence of Smith.
