Donald Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina once called the hush money case the former president is currently embroiled in “fair game” for prosecutors during an interview five years ago.
Tacopina, who is representing Trump in the 34-count indictment brought forth by Manhattan prosecutors, has called the case a “joke.”
However, he believed it to be a more serious matter during an appearance on CNN in 2018.
Speaking then with CNN’s Laura Coates and New York Times journalist Frank Bruni, Tacopina called the alleged deal between Trump and porn star Stormy Daniels an “illegal agreement.”
In a now-viral clip of the segment, Tacopina said: “If there’s an issue with that payment to Stormy Daniels, being that it was made on behalf of the candidate, and it was not declared, that’s fair game.
“Unfortunately, if that’s the case, it’s an illegal agreement. It’s a fraud,” he adds.
“If that’s, in fact, the case, it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t pass the straight-face test. And quite frankly, if that is what happened, we have a potential campaign finance issue.”
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Although his statements have gone viral following Trump’s historic arrest on Tuesday, Tacopina has since said the 2018 comments were based on a hypothetical question and that he wasn’t privy to the facts of the case back then.
He then backed up his defense by noting he spoke as a true lawyer should and used “if that’s the case,” twice when commenting, to make clear he did not have all the facts in front of him.
Despite his previous shrewd assessment of Trump’s case, Tacopina has since strongly condemned the allegations facing his client and claimed Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s case is so weak it would be thrown out before going to trial.
Speaking to CBS Mornings after Trump became the first former president to be charged with a crime, Tacopina said: “There’s no crime at all — at all. I mean, this is not a game. You’re charging the [former] president of the United States with crimes, crimes that will never be sustained in a court of law because they don’t exist.”
While Tacopina now stands as one of Trump’s biggest supporters in the case, sources close to the former president told Rolling Stone that the lawyer comes off as “dumb” and a “loudmouth.”
“He p*sses off others with his antics, but he’s a blunt object that Donald Trump wants, apparently,” one of the sources was quoted as saying.
A third source speaking to the magazine put it even more bluntly, calling the big-name criminal defense lawyer “such a frickin’ idiot.”
