Former President Donald Trump added a third lawyer to his defense team on Monday, a day before he surrenders for arrest and arraignment in Manhattan. The new attorney, Todd Blanche, will work with the unlikely pair of Susan Necheles and Joseph Tacopina to defend Trump against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's charges, expected to center on falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Each lawyer has their own history with Trump and his associates: Blanche represents Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn and was former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's lawyer in his Manhattan mortgage fraud case. Nacheles represented the Trump Organization in the felony tax fraud case it lost to Bragg last year in front of Judge Juan Merchan, also expected to preside over Trump's upcoming hush money trial. Tacopina, whose clients have included Michael Jackson, Alex Rodriguez, and Sean Hannity, is Trump's lawyer in a federal lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll, who is accusing Trump of raping her in a department store in the mid-1990s. Tacopina has also represented Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is engaged to Donald Trump Jr.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"That's like a six-season Netflix show," Cooper added as Miller wrapped up his rundown. "Yeah, this is like Succession, the lawyer version, with a little Toxic added," Miller said. "There is no soap opera that can measure up with the drama of the Manhattan legal world," legal commentator Elie Honig said, adding another layer to the drama: Tacopina's brief representation of Stormy Daniels (and televised comments about Trump's guilt in the matter).
Yes, "after a brief hiatus, The Trump Show is back," and "new episodes are already on the horizon," Michael M. Grynbaum writes at The New York Times. "Even the supporting cast from The Trump Show heyday is getting into the action": Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, the Trump family. "No matter how sick of Trump we are, we can't take our eyes off him," says University of Southern California media expert Martin Kaplan. "Especially if it looks like the clown car might crash."
-
6 homes for entertainingFeature Featuring a heated greenhouse in Pennsylvania and a glamorous oasis in California
-
Obesity drugs: Will Trump’s plan lower costs?Feature Even $149 a month, the advertised price for a starting dose of a still-in-development GLP-1 pill on TrumpRx, will be too big a burden for the many Americans ‘struggling to afford groceries’
-
The ‘Kavanaugh stop’Feature Activists say a Supreme Court ruling has given federal agents a green light to racially profile Latinos
-
Affordability: Does Trump have an answer?Feature Trump ‘refuses to admit there is a problem’
-
Ecuador rejects push to allow US military basesSpeed Read Voters rejected a repeal of a constitutional ban on US and other foreign military bases in the country
-
Trump pivots on Epstein vote amid GOP defectionsSpeed Read The president said House Republicans should vote on a forced release of the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files
-
Is Marjorie Taylor Greene undergoing a political realignment?TALKING POINTS The MAGA firebrand made a name for herself in Congress as one of Trump’s most unapologetic supporters. One year into Trump’s second term, a shift is afoot.
-
How are these Epstein files so damaging to Trump?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION As Republicans and Democrats release dueling tranches of Epstein-related documents, the White House finds itself caught in a mess partially of its own making
-
Will California tax its billionaires?Talking Points A proposed one-time levy would shore up education and Medicaid
-
Trump DOJ sues to block California redistrictingSpeed Read California’s new congressional map was drawn by Democrats to flip Republican-held House seats
-
GOP retreats from shutdown deal payout provisionSpeed Read Senators are distancing themselves from a controversial provision in the new government funding package
