The image of a grim-faced Donald Trump at the defendants’ table on Tuesday (April 4) during the former president’s arraignment on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to cover up hush payments to a porn actress made history for a number of reasons.
But amidst the avalanche of coverage of the first former commander in chief to be criminally arraigned — Trump pleaded not guilty to all the charges — one thing you may have missed was an Instagram Story from Meek Mill about another bizarre wrinkle to the tale.
“Trump graduated from the streets… sharing criminal lawyers [with us]… Joe Tactical,” Meek wrote below the now-iconic image of a glum Trump seated in a Manhattan court room flanked by his lawyers, according to Complex. Meek was moved to weigh in because the man to Trump’s left was none other than lawyer Joe Tacopina, who was part of Mill’s legal team during the rapper’s successful bid to overturn his sentence for violating probation form a decade-old gun and drug case.
Another slide in the Story printed up the receipts tying Meek to twice-impeached Trump, depicting the MC standing next to Tacopina after a hearing. The two worked together when Tacopina — a tough-talking attorney known for representing rapper YG on suspicion of robbery, Sopranos actor Lillo Brancato on murder/weapons charges and actress Taryn Manning on assault charges — helped get Meek sprung from jail after serving five months on the probation violation.
Trump has denied the claims that he personally wrote checks to reimburse his former fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay for the silence of two women the former Apprentice star allegedly had affairs with during the 2016 presidential election. Trump, who is running for president for a third time, is due back in court in December.
