Trump’s New Attorney Might Have to Drop Him Because He Claimed an Attorney-Client Relationship With Stormy Daniels in 2018

AP Photo/Matt Sayles

Donald Trump’s latest attorney Joe Tacopina seems to have a massive conflict of interest — a prior attorney-client relationship with Stormy Daniels, the porn star who was allegedly paid off to keep her affair with the former president quiet.

Tacopina has found his name in the headlines as the latest lawyer to go on television to defend Trump as reports say the ex-president may soon face an indictment from the Manhattan District Attorney over allegedly falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 hush money payment orchestrated by Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen.

Cohen has accused Trump of reimbursing him for the payment to Daniels, which Trump has denied.

Among his other televised comments, Tacopina accused Daniels of lying and called Trump a “victim of extortion” by Daniels in a recent appearance on Good Morning America. This may end up being a problem for Tacopina because of his past attorney-client relationship with Daniels herself about this exact matter.

Without getting too far into the weeds of the professional responsibility and ethics rules that govern attorneys, conflicts of interest are a fundamental restriction that prevents an attorney from representing a client if that representation conflicts with another client of that attorney. These rules can be triggered even if a prospective client never pays the attorney for legal services or signs a formal representation agreement.

As noted by NYU Law Professor Ryan Goodman, the American Bar Association’s Model Rules and the New York Rules of Professional Conduct (which govern Tacopina’s Manhattan-based law firm) note that a prospective client who discusses a potential lawyer-client relationship may end up disclosing information that would then disqualify the lawyer from representing another conflicting client in the future.

Specifically, New York Rule 1.18(a), which governs duties owed to prospective clients, restricts Tacopina from being able to “use or reveal” any information disclosed by a prospective client.

Rule 1.18(c) prohibits a lawyer from representing “a client with interests materially adverse to those of a prospective client in the same or a substantially related matter if the lawyer received information from the prospective client that could be significantly harmful to that person in the matter.”

In other words, if Daniels disclosed information to Tacopina about her alleged affair with Trump, the alleged hush money payment, her alleged conversations with Trump or Cohen, or any of the other illicit and possibly illegal things that the Mediaite attorneys prefer me to describe as “allegedly” being committed, Tacopina would not be able to also represent Trump regarding this same mess.

Tacopina himself has admitted that he formed an attorney-client relationship with Daniels, at least twice — and yep, it’s on video.

As flagged by Professor Goodman, in a March 9, 2018 appearance on CNN Tonight, Tacopina was asked by Don Lemon about his conversations with Daniels regarding possibly representing her, before she ended up being represented by Michael Avenatti.

“Joe, I understand that you had some communication with Stormy Daniels at some point,” said Lemon.

“You know, obviously there’s attorney client issues, let’s put it this way,” replied Tacopina. “I was contacted –”

He was briefly interrupted by one of the other panelists and Lemon stepped in to let him finish.

“The question I was asked was whether I was contacted or asked to represent her,” said Tacopina. “The answer is yes I was, but I can’t go into anything further. I’m not representing her. I don’t represent her. I’ve never represented her. I’ve been asked to represent a lot of people. I don’t take every case I’m asked to represent.”

In another CNN appearance that month, on March 16, 2018, Lemon and Tacopina had another conversation about the same topic.

“So before being represented by Avenatti, Stormy approached you about representation,” said Lemon. “Did you get any impression that she may have signed the NDA under duress and was she afraid for her physical safety?”

“You know, of course I can’t really talk about my impressions or any conversations we had because there is an attorney-client privilege that attaches even to a consultation,” the attorney replied.

Watch the video clips above, via CNN.