Donald Trump’s defense attorney quits ahead of trial

| 6:20 pm EST January 15, 2024
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Donald Trump tends to go through lawyers the way that the rest of us go through, well, pick your own analogy. He generally either hires bad lawyers who flame out, or good lawyers who end up running away screaming. Now he’s lost another attorney, who was previously playing a big role for him.

Joe Tacopina served as Donald Trump’s defense attorney in his first E. Jean Carroll civil trial, and was representing Trump in his yet-to-take-place New York criminal trial (the one brought by Alvin Bragg). But now, just a day before Trump’s second E. Jean Carroll trial is set to begin, Tacopina is withdrawing from representing Trump entirely.

No reason is being given. But this means that Trump will have to be represented by a different attorney in his second E. Jean Carroll trial, in his appeal of the first E. Jean Carroll verdict, and in his upcoming New York criminal trial.

It’s not as if there’s any particular attorney who could save Donald Trump from the legal mess that he’s in. And Tacopina didn’t exactly impress anyone when he was representing Trump. But Trump clearly thought at one point that Tacopina was his guy, and now Tacopina is out. So it’s yet another calamity for Trump.

Just to be clear, no, this move isn’t going to magically delay Donald Trump’s criminal trials and somehow get him off the hook. Nothing works that way. Nor has Trump done anything to suggest that he’s even capable of that kind of strategic thinking. Trump is simply collapsing in chaos, nothing more. And it’ll only get worse for him as these trials continue to progress.