Judge may be about to throw Joe Tacopina off the Donald Trump case
Donald Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina is quickly making a name for himself, and not in a good way. Tacopina is representing Trump in his current civil rape trial, in which he’s harassed E. Jean Carroll on the stand in a failed attempt at getting her to crack. Tacopina is also representing Trump in his Manhattan criminal trial, but perhaps not for long.
Awhile back there was reporting that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg had obtained evidence that Tacopina had previously communicated with Stormy Daniels about representing her in this scandal. If so, that would be a clear conflict of interest, and would prevent Tacopina from being able to represent Trump in this matter.
Now the judge in the case has sent Tacopina a letter instructing him to turn over all his communications with Daniels, so the judge can determine whether to remove Tacopina from the case. Keep in mind that Bragg has surely already given the judge Daniels’ copies of these communications, so it’s not as if Tacopina can get away with lying or failing to comply (the latter of which would land him in hot water anyway).
We’ll see which way the judge ends up ruling. But it’s clear that he’s taking this matter seriously. If the judge felt that Bragg’s request to have Tacopina thrown off the case was weak or frivolous, he’d have rejected it, instead of ordering Tacopina to turn over material.
