Even Donald Trump’s lawyer admits his client’s social-media post picturing the former president holding a baseball bat next to an image of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was “ill-advised.
“I think that was an ill-advised post that one of his social-media people put up and he quickly took down when he realized the rhetoric and the photo that was attached to it,” Joe Tacopina told NBC News’ Chuck Todd in a contentious interview Sunday on “Meet the Press.”
Todd pointed out that the image of the 76-year-old Trump wielding the bat ended up on the front page of The Post on Friday and asked whether the ex-president’s comments about Bragg could incite violence, as his rhetoric to supporters allegedly did during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.
Bragg has asked a grand jury to indict Trump on charges apparently related to his alleged attempts to cover up an extramarital affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.
“It’s already happened once,” Todd said to Tacopina, referring to incitement by the former commander-in-chief. “Are you not concerned this could happen [again]?”
Tacopina shot back, “Well, I’m not accepting that proposition that his rhetoric created violence [Jan. 6, 2021].
“I think violence was on the way that day. But I’m not here to discuss that,” the Trump lawyer said. “I’m not going to defend or condemn anything regarding social media. It’s not what I do. … I’m not a Trump PR person. I’m a litigator and a lawyer.”
Trump last weekend claimed on his Twitter-like Truth Social platform that he was going to be indicted by the grand jury within days and has spent much of his time raging against Bragg, including calling him “HUMAN SCUM” and urging the former president’s followers to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK.”
Tacopina asserted Bragg wouldn’t have brought the case against “anyone other than Donald Trump,” alleging that the DA used his office to “politicize and weaponize a campaign.”
Bragg is allegedly investigating a $130,000 hush-money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election, which the DA is partly claiming is a violation of campaign-finance law because it wasn’t reported properly.
Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen made the payment to Daniels to ensure her silence about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump a decade earlier.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 and was sentenced to three years in federal prison.
Trump has denied making the payment and having the affair.
Tacopina said the payment to Daniels was a “personal civil settlement.
“That’s done everyday in New York City. This had nothing to do with campaign-finance laws,” he said.
But Todd said the probe focuses on falsifying business records, which Bragg has pursued in more than 60 cases over the past four years.
“Oh Chuck, you couldn’t be more wrong,” Tacopina said to Todd.
He claimed that the Manhattan DA’s office has never charged anyone “with a crime for falsifying business records to pay hush money … regarding a personal matter.”
Tacopina insisted that the payment was made by Cohen with personal funds and without Trump’s knowledge and that Cohen later sent Trump a bill to reimburse him.
But Todd said, “They claimed it was legal fees.”
Tacopina responded, “Seriously, what would he put in his personal ledger?
” ‘Payment for hush money to quiet an affair that I claim I never had?’ ”
Todd replied, “Should it be the truth?”
Tacopina said, “I think you’re being a little petty when you’re looking at this now,” adding, “You can put whatever you want in your own personal ledger.”
