WASHINGTON — A former member of Donald Trump’s legal team undercut one of the former president’s frequent talking points — saying he doesn’t think President Joe Biden had anything to do with the prosecution in his hush money case.
Joe Tacopina, who represented Trump at the arraignment in the New York hush money trial and in the civil suit brought by writer E. Jean Carrollleft his legal team in January.
He offered a broad rejection of Trump’s repeated claim that the case was brought by Biden in an attempt to harm his political rival.
“This is a matter of state. This is different from the [special counsel] Jac Smith cases,” Tacopina said on MSNBC. “This is not a federal prosecution. Joe Biden or anyone from his Justice Department has absolutely nothing to do with the Manhattan DA’s office, they have no jurisdiction over him, they have no contact with him, they certainly have no control over him. So to say that Joe Biden brought this case is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard. We know that’s not the case and even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case.”
A jury in Manhattan found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump was accused of trying to conceal the payments to pay back 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 insisted the prosecution was purely political.
“This is all being done by Biden and his people,” Trump said at the start of a press conference on Friday. “This is being done by Washington. No one has ever seen anything like it.”
He has tried to portray himself as the victim of a political vendetta, arguing that Biden is behind the other criminal charges he faces, including over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and over the classified documents which remained in his possession after he left office.
He has provided no evidence about Biden’s connections to his charges, all of which he has pleaded not guilty. Biden has said little, arguing that he has allowed the Justice Department to operate without his influence and pointing to Smith’s independence.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
