Act Daily News
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Former President Donald Trump’s protection legal professional repeatedly speculated as a authorized pundit that Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels probably occurred and that the $130,000 fee made to Daniels days earlier than the 2016 election might be seen as an in-kind marketing campaign contribution, contradicting his latest authorized and public protection of Trump.
Joe Tacopina, a protection legal professional representing Trump within the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office investigation of Trump, made the feedback in 2018 as a outstanding authorized commentator – years earlier than he would finally symbolize the previous president within the case which will indict Trump.
In a number of appearances on Act Daily News within the spring of 2018, Tacopina speculated that Trump had an affair with Daniels after she detailed their encounter and since “to me, you know it means it’s true because he hasn’t threatened to sue” nor did he tweet about it. He additionally mentioned that as a lawyer, he would have suggested Trump to confess to the affair and transfer on.
“I mean, it’s remarkable when you talk about the president of the United States, but it, honestly, it’s not remarkable when you’re talking about Donald Trump, the president of the United States,” Tacopina mentioned. “No one was here, is going, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this!’ This is why I’ve been saying since day one if they had just said, ‘Yeah, OK.’ I mean, he survived much greater – I don’t even know if they’re called scandals – but episodes than this. This is from 2006. I mean, this is way before he was the president.”
“I’ve said all along, if he had just come out and said, ‘Yeah, I did. So what?’ And just chalk that up to another one of the things on his list of minor scandals, he gets through,” mentioned Tacopina in one other look on Act Daily News in 2018.
“But she went into great detail about her one-night stand with him. What else can she say? There is nothing else to tell,” added Tacopina.
And within the spring of 2018, Tacopina acknowledged that the episode may put Trump in jeopardy “because this could be looked as an in-kind contribution at the time of the election. This is a real problem. And they both, and I’m telling you this, the reason we’re here, I strongly believe is because of the words of both Michael Cohen and Donald Trump.”
But 5 years later, appearing as Trump’s protection legal professional, Tacopina reversed his argument, calling the fee to Daniels “plain extortion,” dismissing potential marketing campaign finance violations and repeating Trump’s denials that he ever had the affair.
“This was a plain extortion. And I don’t know, since when we’ve decided to start prosecuting extortion victims. He’s denied, vehemently denied, this affair,” mentioned Tacopina on “Good Morning America” final week. “But he had to pay money because there was going to be an allegation that was gonna be publicly embarrassing to him, regardless of the campaign. And the campaign finance laws are very, very clear, George, that you cannot have something that’s even primarily related to the campaign to be considered campaign finance law.”
In a press release to Act Daily News, Tacopina mentioned that he provided his opinion based mostly on a hypothetical and that “my mind hadn’t changed about the issue but what has changed is that I learned the facts.”
The remark is only one of many who Tacopina made concerning the former president, in response to a Act Daily News KFile assessment of different feedback. In one look, made in February 2021 on WABC radio, an area New York station, Tacopina mentioned Trump deserved impeachment for his verbal assaults inciting his supporters – who he referred to as “a bunch of idiots” and “lunatics” – to assault the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“I don’t think he did anything criminal,” Tacopina mentioned on WABC in February 2021 when discussing the riot. “Did I think he did something impeachable? Yes, I do.”
“Do I think they’re divisive? Yes. Do I think he spreads hate? Yes. Do I think everything he’s done is wrong? No. Do I think he did some good things? Yes. So I like to just sort of call it like I see it, and I’m not so partisan one way or another,” Tacopina continued. “But you know, when you say to a bunch of lunatics, a bunch of, you know, people who have had a propensity towards violence. Before these groups that are gathered, you know, which was a planned gathering, ‘Hey, go to the Capitol and fight and fight.’ Fight for what? Go to the Capitol and fight for what does fight mean to these idiots? What do you think it meant?…They killed people.”
“Do I think he thought they were gonna break some windows and do some things? Absolutely,” he later added.
Tacopina would later symbolize one of many Capitol rioters who assaulted Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who later died of pure causes on January 7; the rioter was sentenced to 80 months in jail.
Tacopina additionally beforehand criticized the previous president for attacking the justice system.
“This is the Justice Department, how it works every single day of the week. But for some reason, the president cannot cope with that,” mentioned Tacopina in 2018.
“What chills me as a lawyer, forget about being a defense lawyer or a former prosecutor as I am, is that our president is attacking the foundation of our justice system in this country by calling to question the FBI, the Justice Department, his own attorney general, every judge whoever rules against him. Yeah, it’s just unhealthy for the sort of the health of this justice system.”
Source: www.cnn.com