(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Trump's lawyer is back on television, still whining, still not helping Trump's case [1] ['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-02 x TACOPINA: This is something that we believe is a political persecution & I believe people on both sides of the aisle believe that STEPHANOPOULOS: What evidence do you have that Democrats see this as political persecution? TACOPINA: *word salad* pic.twitter.com/uqlHGSeTsU — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 2, 2023 Tacopina: "This is something, obviously, we believe is a political persecution. People on both sides of the aisle believe that. Complete abuse of power. [...]" Host George Stephanopoulos: What evidence do you have that Democrats see this as political persecution? [...] Tacopina: I mean look, not only articles have come out from The New York Times, Financial Times, and whatnot saying it would be a grave miscarriage of justice, a mistake to bring this case, but I've heard Democrats coming out on various talk shows and radio shows and whatnot saying this is not the case, not that they're supporting Donald Trump or embracing him. Oh, for sure. The various talk shows. The radio shows. The whatnot. This is going to be quite the trial, presuming it goes to trial. Your honor, I'd like to bring your attention to The New York Times and to this whatnot I've found. Tacopina: But that's my point all along, George, it shouldn't matter which side of the aisle you sit, if you're an American and you're concerned about rule of law, there should be no scenario where you want this to happen, because we all know, and if you're intellectually honest, we all know had Donald Trump not been Donald Trump, was John Smith, this case never would have been brought. If he was not running for re-election, there's no way this case would have been brought. This case is not even legally sufficient, factually, it's a joke, and it won't survive a challenge of law in the courtroom— Stephanopoulos: You can't know that for sure, no one's seen the charges. There are at least 24 charges according to most reports, perhaps up to 34. Tacopina: Right. Stephanopoulos: You haven't seen the charges. I haven't seen the charges. You don't know what's behind that right now. Tacopina: Oh I do know George, I mean c'mon— Behold: This is what's known as banging the table, and it’s top lawyering. Tacopina can't dispute the facts of the case, which are plentiful: During his 2016 presidential run, Donald Trump authorized the payment of hush money to a porn star he'd had an affair with so that she wouldn't talk during the critical last days of the campaign. He and then-lawyer Michael Cohen fudged the books to hide the payment. Trump further fudged the books to conceal whether it was Trump's corporation or Trump's personal checkbook the payments came from, but Tacopina helpfully acknowledged last week that Trump's corporation was just a shell for his personal funds and it's all personal. Cohen ended up in prison, and the rest sat dormant for exactly as long as Donald J. Trump had personal control of the Department of Justice, but aside from some real questions about whether Trump's let's-say "donation" to his own presidential campaign amounts to a campaign financial violation, there's significant evidence that Trump and his company screwed up the accounting for the payments by a wide enough margin that it could constitute tax fraud, and here we are. Tacopina has to grant you all of that: That Trump had the affair with the porn star (though her own accounting of the encounter makes it sound much more like rape), that he paid the hush money, that he hid the hush money, that he did it to boost his election chances, that someone already went to jail over it, and that he eagerly uses his dodgy corporate entity as a personal slush fund. All he's got left for the television cameras is to argue that it's a damn shame a powerful rich guy can't do every bit of that without getting hauled into court over it. Trump was indicted by a grand jury that saw at least some plausible reason to think Trump had committed an apparent bucketload of crimes, but we still don’t even know which crimes they saw evidence of. Maybe they're little crimes! Maybe they're big crimes! Maybe he's going to turn out to be innocent, when his day in court comes! But to hear top Republicans and Donald Trump's lawyers—but I repeat myself—talk of it, it's a stain on the republic that anyone would even think of making a criminal deal out of anything even tangentially related to campaign-related porn star hush money book-cooking. Yes, yes. How dare we, and so forth. It'll be interesting to see if Tacopina changes his rhetoric even a little bit when he and we finally learns what the actual charges are. It doesn't seem likely, but it's possible. "Tax fraud," he might scoff next week. "When was the last time a rich white guy was criminally charged for a minor six-figure case of tax fraud? I tell you, this country is going to hell." I know it's his job to make Donald Trump, of all people, a sympathetic figure, but this just ain't doing it. Who among us has not cooked the books to hide money given to a porn star during our presidential run is not the sort of legal problem the rest of us can identify with. It doesn’t work. And will Tacopina or whoever Trump hires after Tacopina gets canned use the same who among us defense if Trump indictments come down for his attempt to rig Georgia vote totals, or for inciting a crowd to violence in an attempt to overthrow the legitimately elected U.S. government? That might be an even heavier lift. RELATED STORIES Trump's new lawyer just admitted that Trump's whole corporate shell is just 'personal funds' Trump lawyer in court after being forced before grand jury Manhattan DA's office politely tells Jim Jordan to pound sand [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/2/2161676/-Trump-s-lawyer-is-back-on-television-still-whining-still-not-helping-Trump-s-case Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/