WASHINGTON — A former member of Donald Trump’s legal team has undermined one of the former president’s frequent talking points — saying he thinks President Joe Biden had nothing to do with the indictment in the hush-hush case.
Joe TacopinaIn January, he left the legal team that represented Trump in a hush money lawsuit in New York and in a civil lawsuit brought by author E. Jean Carroll.
He offered to broadly reject Trump’s repeated claim that the case was brought by Biden to harm his political opponent.
“This is a state job. This is different from that [special counsel] Jack Smith cases,” Tacopina said on MSNBC. “This is not a federal indictment. Joe Biden or anyone in his Department of Justice has nothing to do with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, has no jurisdiction over it, has nothing to do with it, certainly has no control over it. So to say that Joe Biden brought this case is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. We know that’s not the case, and even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case.”
A Manhattan jury found for Trump He is found guilty on 34 articles falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump was accused of trying to hide payments from his former fixer Michael Cohen, who paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence in the final days of the 2016 election.
Trump, who also denied having a relationship with Daniels, insisted that he would appeal the jury’s decision and that the accusation was purely political.
“Biden and his people are doing all this,” Trump said at the start of a press conference on Friday. “Washington is doing it. No one has seen anything like this.”
He sought to portray himself as the victim of a political vendetta, claiming he was behind Biden’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and other criminal charges he faces over classified documents left in his hands after leaving office.
He has offered no evidence linking him to Biden’s charges and has pleaded not guilty to all of them. Biden has been tight-lipped, arguing that the Justice Department has allowed him to operate without influence and pointing to Smith’s independence.