In his first interview since leaving Donald Trump’s legal team, attorney Joe Tacopina cited “personal reasons” and his “compass” as reasons behind his departure.
“I left the team because it was just my time,” he told the Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC Saturday in what he said would be his only interview on the matter. “I had to follow my compass and my compass told me my time there was done. There are a lot of personal reasons that went into that, things that I can’t and won’t discuss.”
Tacopina represented the former president in his first trial last year against E. Jean Carroll, a writer whom Trump was found liable of defaming and sexually abusing.
Last week, a day before the start of a second defamation trial involving Carroll, Tacopina said he had stopped representing Trump “on all matters.” He filed notices seeking withdrawal of his law firm from Trump’s New York criminal trial and the appeal of the verdict in the first Carroll trial.