Donald Trump’s attorney insists there wouldn’t even be an investigation into Stormy Daniels’ payment if he wasn’t running for president in 2024
- Joe Tacopina said the only reason there was ever a case against him is because he’s running for president again in 2024.
- “This case isn’t even legally sufficient — in fact, it’s a joke,” he said
Donald Trump’s lawyer claimed that if the former president did not run for another term in the White House, there would never be a case against him regarding the hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Joe Tacopina, who represents Trump in the case of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, said Americans who are concerned about law enforcement should be concerned.
Tacopina’s defense comes after Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Manhattan on Thursday — more than a week after the ex-president warned he would be arrested and told his supporters to “protest, protest, protest.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s motorcade was pictured arriving at his Mar-a-Lago golf club on Sunday as security at his residence in Palm Beach, Florida ramped up over the weekend.
Donald Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said the only reason his client has ever been sued is because he is running for president again in 2024.
“If you’re an American and you’re concerned about the rule of law, there shouldn’t be a scenario where you want this to happen,” Tacopina told ABC’s This Week on Sunday morning.
If you’re intellectually honest, we all know that if Donald Trump hadn’t been Donald Trump and it had been John Smith, this case would never have been brought. If he did not run for re-election, this case would never have been brought,” he added.
“This case isn’t even legal enough — it’s actually a joke.”
Tacopina said the statute of limitations on the case has expired and said DA Bragg is trying to bring unrelated matters into the case to bolster charges against Trump.
“We all know it has to do with a confidential settlement agreement—a completely legal confidential settlement agreement with Stormy Daniels, her attorney. “Michael Cohen and her attorney signed that together, Donald Trump didn’t,” Tacopina said. “We do know that it has to do with that. So that’s what it’s all about.’
“And the entries in the ledgers would be felonies, and they’re not even false — but they would be felonies and way over the statute of limitations,” he continued in his legal defense of the former president.
“So you had to cobble together some violations to show that it was done with the intent to cover up another crime and that that crime would be a violation of federal campaign law, which the FEC said didn’t happen, the U.S. law firm of the Southern District of New York said it didn’t happen.’
Trump paid Cohen, his once-longtime “fixer” and personal attorney, $130,000 for legal fees which were in turn used to pay Daniels in 2016.
The allegations allege that Trump knew the payment was going to Daniels and was a so-called hush money payment to keep her quiet during his first presidential campaign about their affair years earlier.
However, Tacopina insists the former president was unaware of the settlement reached by Cohen and Daniels’ lawyer in 2016, and Trump reiterated last week that he never had a sexual relationship with Daniels.