Former President Trump’s lawyer on Sunday contradicted Trump’s assertion that the judge who presided over his hush money indictment was acting out of personal bias.
Trump blasted New York Supreme Court justice Juan Merchan in a Friday post on Truth Social.
“The Judge ‘assigned’ to my Witch Hunt Case, a ‘Case’ that has NEVER BEEN CHARGED BEFORE, HATES ME,” Trump wrote.
During an appearance on ABC News’s “This Week,” Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina told George Stephanopoulos he doesn’t agree with the former president’s claims.
“No, I don’t believe the judge is biased,” Tacopina said.
When Stephanopoulos questioned why Trump made public statements to the contrary, Tacopina doubled down.
“Do I think the judge is biased? Of course not,” he said. “How could I subscribe to that when I’ve had no interactions with this judge that would lead me to believe he’s biased?”
His client is “entitled to his own opinion,” he added. “I’m not his PR person. I’m not his spokesperson.”
Merchan also oversaw the criminal tax fraud case against the Trump Organization, in which its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in jail in January after pleading guilty to 15 counts of tax evasion.
In his Truth Social post, Trump claimed the judge “railroaded” Weisselberg into taking a plea deal.
Tacopina on Sunday echoed messaging from many Republicans and Trump himself by calling the indictment a “complete abuse of power.”
Trump is expected to be arraigned on Tuesday and plead not guilty, although the exact charges he faces remain unknown.
“All the Tuesday stuff is still very much up in the air other than the fact that we will very loudly and proudly say not guilty,” Tacopina said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
After his court appearance, Trump is expected to speak from Mar-a-Lago that evening at 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday.