'Odd choice': Expert mocks Trump's decision to bring on lawyer without trial experience

Trump purportedly lost his star-studded trial attorney and tried to make do with Alina Habba.

Joseph Tacopina backed out of serving former President Donald Trump in his criminal case in Manhattan about hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, and from repping him in the the civil lawsuit writer E. Jean Carroll brought claiming Trump defamed her after committing sexual assault in the 1990s, leaving others to pick up the pieces.

"I withdrew on all matters," Tacopina told ABC News, of the case where Trump has been ordered to pay $5 million.

Tacopina has represented boldface names from MLB superstar Alex Rodriguez to rapper Meek Mill among others.

"It is worth noting, that Joe Tacopina, the former lawyer, just recently, he stepped off that case," noted former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann while being interviewed by Lawrence O'Donnell for the MSNBC show "The Last Word."

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He believes this factored in large on the tall task Alina Habba faced when attempting to fill-in on short notice and appeared to stumble with basic process such as offering evidence into the record.

When Habba began reciting various social media posts aimed at Carroll following a 2019 first-person account she published in New York Magazine, while Carroll, 80, was being questioned, Judge Lewis Kaplan called for a trial recess and admonished Habba, telling her: “You should refresh your memory about how it is you get a document into evidence.”"

Weissmann believes the demands of being a trial lawyer don't appear to be Habba's strong suit.

"So she has had to step in, presumably, with a larger role than she anticipated," he said. "Mr. Tacopina is a trial lawyer. Alina Habba may be a very skilled lawyer outside of the courtroom, and maybe inside the courtroom — it doesn't bear the rules of evidence."

"So, it is an odd choice.... because basic evidentiary issues are the kinds of things that... [are] not something that's part of her toolkit."

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