Former President Donald Trump’s ex-attorney, Joe Tacopina, has predicted a poor outcome for his former client’s impending court processes, claiming that Trump may be found guilty in one of his federal criminal cases.
Tacopina declared one day before the start of E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial that he would no longer represent Trump “on all matters,” according to HuffPost. He filed efforts to have his law practice removed from both the appeal of the first Carroll trial result and Trump’s criminal prosecution in New York.
“As much as I’d love to discuss them,” Tacopina told MSNBC’s Al Sharpton. Tacopina said it is wrong for other former Trump attorneys to dispute and criticize the former president on television. Some of Trump’s federal cases are “serious” and “not to be taken lightly,” Tacopina told The Hill.
In answer to Sharpton’s inquiry about whether Trump may be found guilty in one of his criminal matters, Tacopina said, “Oh, is that possible? Absolutely.” Tacopina remarked, “You have a jury of twelve who will finally determine this. I knew Jack Smith was a federal prosecutor during his time in Brooklyn. They’re serious prosecutors, and these are federal cases with a jury present.”
Trump is charged with four crimes in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Washington, D.C. case, alleging that he engaged in a plot to defraud the United States. The complaint alleges that Trump was at the center of a plot to prevent President Biden’s votes from being certified on January 6, 2021.
Smith is also in charge of Trump’s legal defense against the mishandling of confidential materials at his Mar-a-Lago estate. In both cases, Trump filed a not-guilty plea.
Sharpton pressed Tacopina on whether he felt they were “good cases” and “not just politics.” Tacopina answered, “Look, do I believe there is a political slant to some of this, the way it was handled? “Yes, I do.” The Brooklyn lawyer said, “Do I believe these cases are invalid? Look, the grand jury decided to indict him, and he will have to face a jury in Washington, D.C.”
Tacopina defended Trump in the hush money case as well as his appeal of a civil complaint claiming sexual assault filed by longtime advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. Three of Trump’s trial locations—New York City, Washington, and Atlanta—are “not particularly big Trump venues,” according to Tacopina. “So that’s going to be something to grapple with there,” he went on to say. “And you can’t say, ‘There’s no way he’ll get convicted.'”