Joe Tacopina, former President Donald Trump's attorney, said Trump has "no plans" to take part in a Manhattan grand jury probe into a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
"We have no plans on participating in that proceeding," Tacopina said Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America." "Decision needs to be made still. There's been no deadline set, so we'll wait and see."
The Manhattan district attorney's office has been looking into whether Trump falsified business records regarding a $130,000 payment Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, made to Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election, sources told ABC News.
Tacopina reiterated that "clearly this prosecutor and his prosecutors' office has ... an agenda. They've scoured [Trump's] personal life and business life for seven years to try to find something."
Tacopina said the money Trump gave was an extortion payment and that it was not related to Trump's presidential campaign.
"I don't know since when we've decided to start prosecuting extortion victims," Tacopina said. "He's vehemently denied this affair, but he had to pay money because there was going to be an allegation that was going to be publicly embarrassing, regardless of the campaign."
Tacopina said Trump made the extortion payment "with personal funds to prevent something coming out false but embarrassing to himself and his family's young son. That's not a campaign finance violation, not by any stretch," especially since the money was not a contribution to his campaign.
Tacopina said that there "was absolutely no false records made, to my knowledge" regarding how the payment was registered in the Trump Organization records.
Asked if he expects an indictment for Trump, Tacopina said, "I expect justice to prevail. If that's the case, there shouldn't be an indictment."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.