An hour after former President Trump left a Manhattan federal courtroom on Friday that heard his appeal of a jury’s sexual abuse verdict against him, Trump walked out in front of the cameras in his Trump Tower lobby to rail against the women who accused him.
But they weren’t the sole target of his attacks.
Flanked by a half-dozen attorneys, the former president oscillated between public praise and criticism for them, reflecting the complicated dynamics of his legal team involved in the cases brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.
“I feel sad that I have to come up here and explain it,” Trump said.
“I have all this legal talent, but legal talent cannot overcome rigged judges, they can’t overcome a 4 percent Republican area,” he continued. “I’m disappointed in my legal talent, I’ll be honest with you. They’re good, they’re good people, they’re talented people.”
Friday’s event marked Trump’s most extensive public comments yet about his attorneys involved in two civil trials initiated by Carroll, who accused Trump of sexual assault and defamation. Juries have awarded her a total of $93 million in damages.
After the first trial, Trump’s lead lawyer was off the case.
“My lawyer who’s not up here,” Trump said on Friday of attorney Joe Tacopina, “not with us any longer.”
Trump went on to detail his disagreements with Tacopina, including his long-held frustration that the lawyer urged him not to attend the trial.
“He said, ‘Sir you don’t have to show up, I’ve got this – you shouldn’t do it, it’s beneath you, it’s beneath the office of the president,’” Trump said, giving an impression of his brash former attorney who carries a reputation of representing celebrity clients.
“I understood what he meant by that, and so I didn’t show up,” Trump added. “And I was found guilty of something that I didn’t do, with a woman that I have never seen, touched or in any way was involved with, nor would I want to be.”
The New York jury ordered Trump to pay $5 million by finding him civilly liable for sexually abusing Carroll and later defaming her when she came forward publicly during Trump’s presidency. Civil liability is not the same as a guilty verdict, which only occurs in criminal cases and would’ve carried a higher burden.
When a separate jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million in Carroll’s second defamation case, the former president didn’t fire his lead attorney, however.
In fact, Alina Habba, the attorney, stood behind Trump at Friday’s press conference.
Her primary focus, however, is now on Trump’s campaign.
“You must vote Donald Trump back in because as an attorney, as a woman, as a mother, our future of this country depends on it,” Habba said at the press conference on Friday.
She now serves as a campaign senior adviser as attorneys from the former president’s criminal defense team take the lead on the appeals in the Carroll cases.
The team includes D. John Sauer and Will Scharf, who led Trump’s successful presidential immunity appeal at the Supreme Court, and attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who represent Trump in three of his four criminal cases.
They all joined the former president at his press conference alongside Boris Epshteyn, a legal adviser to Trump who often wrote notes to the main attorneys during the recent trial.
Of the group, none spoke except for Scharf, who recently lost a primary challenge to Missouri’s incumbent Republican attorney general.
Scharf delved into the details of the appeals court oral argument earlier that day, which largely concerned whether certain evidence at the first trial was improperly introduced to the jury.
“This is insane,” Scharf said. “This is an absolute abuse of our legal system, it’s an absolute abuse of the rule of law, it should be deeply offensive not just to political supporters of President Trump but to each and every American.”
