Donald Trump’s lawyer has admitted that the former president based his incendiary and unfounded remarks about his imminent arrest last week on mere speculation prompted by “rumours”.
Trump ignited a week of political, media and law enforcement frenzy when he announced on his social media platform Truth Social that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday in the New York criminal investigation relating to hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. Security was stepped up at the Manhattan courthouse and around the district attorney leading the case, Alvin Bragg, amid fears of renewed protests by Trump supporters, some of whom staged the deadly attack at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.
Now Trump’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, has admitted that his client ignited the firestorm based on nothing more than conjecture. Speaking on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, he denied that Trump had invented the claim that he was facing imminent arrest only to reveal the flimsy basis of the remarks.
“He didn’t make it up, he was reacting to a lot of leaks coming out of the district attorney’s office,” Tacopina said. “And then there was of course a lot of rumours regarding the arraignment being the next day. So I think he just assumed, based on those leaks, that was what was going to happen.”
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