During a conversation with MSNBC's Ari Melber, former Donald Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore did not mince words while sharing his thoughts on former colleague and Trump lawyer — Joe Tacopina — who officially left the ex-president's legal team Tuesday.
Tacopina was representing the MAGA hopeful in his ongoing defamation trial versus plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, who's suing Trump for $10 million in damages.
"What do you think of Joe Tacopina leaving Trump's legal team?" Melber asked Parlatore. "Does it leave it weaker, stronger, or no difference?"
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?
The former Trump attorney replied, "In many ways no difference. I mean, he's essentially been on the shelf ever since he screwed up the first Jean Carroll case. He's very good at self-publicity, but not actually very good in the courtroom, and I think that that's something that we all saw during the Jean Carroll case. It's something that I warned them, repeatedly, do not bring this guy in at all. None of other lawyers — none of us wanted to work with him. He went and he did the Jean Carroll case. He mishandled it, in my opinion. He's put on the shelf, and then they kind of left him there for several months."
Melber then asked, "Who's making those big calls then? You said you gave advice 'Hey, don't use this particular lawyer.' Who decided to use him?"
Parlatore said, "Well, I told [former Trump strategic adviser] Boris Epshteyn that this is not the guy for the case. What happened beyond that? Did Boris keep it to himself? I have no clue."
The MSNBC host asked, "How do you think Tacopina, in your view, did not do a great job in that case?"
READ MORE: E. Jean Carroll judge tells jurors to use assumed names and not tell family about service
"I think he barely cross-examined Jean Carroll," Parlatore said. "He didn't call the witnesses that they had prepared, and obviously he was put in a bad position because they didn't really do much, you know, good work in the discovery of that case, but here's a guy that probably hasn't tried a case in over ten years coming in cold and barely cross examining a witness."
Melber asked, "You think that's because of what? A level of incompetence? Or he's out of touch with the courtroom?"
"It's something that a lot of people in New York, certainly myself, have believed about him for a very long time," the defense attorney replied. "That he's not a very competent lawyer, that he is somebody who is more into publicizing his acumen than actually demonstrating it. He represented [former Commissioner of the New York Police Department] Bernard Kerik years ago, and became a witness against his own client, which was something that caused him to get pulled out of that case. In full disclosure, I represented Bernard Kerik in the litigation against Tacopina at the time. But he's really, in my opinion, not that great of a lawyer. He shouldn't have been on this case to begin with."
Watch the video below or at this link.
