by Joseph Tacopina, the trial lawyer on Donald J. Trump’s legal team most successful defending high-profile clients, will no longer represent the former president in his criminal trial in Manhattan, according to a notice sent to the court on Monday.
Tacopina also withdrew Monday from another case in which he was still legally representing Trump: an appeal of the verdict in a lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump was found liable for sexual assault and defamation last year and was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million.
It was unclear why Tacopina decided to withdraw and he declined to comment.
His departure from the two cases comes as Trump enters a year of legal uncertainty. He faces four criminal charges and trials with dates up in the air. The trial in Manhattan, in which he is accused of falsifying business records to hide payments to a porn star during the 2016 election, could begin in March.
Its timing may depend on whether the federal trial accusing Trump of attempting to illegally subvert the 2020 election is delayed. That trial is also scheduled for March.
When asked for comment, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung did not directly address Tacopina’s departure, saying only that Trump “has the most experienced, qualified, disciplined and overall strongest legal team ever assembled.” as he fights his various cases, which he has criticized as partisan efforts to prevent him from being re-elected president.
Trump’s legal team has shrunk, expanded and rotated many times. But Tacopina, a pugnacious New York-based defense attorney, has a long record of victories in lower courts.
He has represented high-profile clients, from Fox News host Sean Hannity, who on his show called Mr. Tacopina one of the “greatest defense attorneys of all time,” to former Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and the rapper A$AP Rocky. .
But the former president was Tacopina’s biggest client to date. When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg indicted Trump last year, Tacopina accompanied Trump to his arraignment.
Attorney Todd Blanche also represents Trump and it is unclear who else might sign on to the case.
The withdrawals came a day before jury selection is to begin in a second trial stemming from allegations brought by Carroll, who accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.
Trump recently told the New York Times that he wanted to testify in the new trial and that Tacopina had advised him not to do so in the first, a decision the former president said he regretted.
During his closing arguments in the previous trial, Tacopina noted that Trump did not testify and described it as the correct decision. There were no questions she could have asked Trump about the events Carroll had described, she said, because she could not pinpoint the date of the attack and because Trump had already denied her claims during a sworn deposition.
Last week, Trump delivered some of his own closing remarks in the New York attorney general’s civil case, and the judge rebuked him for stepping outside the bounds of what he was allowed to speak.
But state courts tend to be less rigid than federal ones, and it’s not clear that the judge in the upcoming defamation trial will tolerate similar behavior if Trump, who has repeatedly attacked Carroll on social media, testifies.
During closing arguments in the previous trial, Tacopina argued that jurors were entitled to their personal opinions about Trump, but suggested that the case was aimed at politically harming his client, a widespread view in Trump’s world.
“It’s okay how you feel about him,” Tacopina said. “I said this before. You could hate Donald Trump. Alright. But there is a time and a secret place to do it. It is called a ballot box during an election. Not here.”
For other clients, Mr. Tacopina brings a specific level of commitment to cases.
Rodriguez, in a brief interview, said he could not speak about Tacopina’s involvement with Trump, but described his own experience being represented by him while fighting a suspension from Major League Baseball related to steroid use.
“He is not a person who just calls on the phone; he lives it,” said Mr. Rodríguez. “When he defends you, he defends you like you’re family.”
