If you listened to Lawrence O’Donnell Thursday night you heard him say, “That is a Trump criminal defense lawyer quoting Donald Trump committing a crime.” Whut? Oh, yes. Trump pays his lawyers beaucoup bucks but they’re still substandard. They’re not killers, like Trump’s beloved Roy Cohn, the template from which all his legal hiring proceeded forward throughout the decades, and to little avail. He never found another Cohn, or even close, but he has found a few dummies, and right now Alina Habba and John Lauro lead the pack. And trust me when I tell you, we are in for a black comedy in court — at least with respect to Jack Smith’s January 6 indictment. Michael Tomasky, the New Republic:
Donald Trump has had quite a run of lawyers. There’s Alina Habba, the camera-hungry counsel who decided to hold a news conference before Trump’s arraignment yesterday and ranted about Hunter Biden before admitting, one presumes accidentally: “I think that everybody was made aware that he lost the election, but that doesn’t mean that was the only advice he was given.”
They’ve been a clown show almost top to bottom, but it looks like John Lauro, who’s taken the public lead this week, is topping them all. He started the week peddling the free speech argument against the indictment, which has been pulverized by many people, such that I don’t even need to go into it. But just to toss in my own quick two cents: If I say to John that Jeff is a terrible person and should die, that’s free speech; if I say to John that Jeff is terrible person and we should conspire to murder him, that’s criminal intent. Pretty simple.
Yes, indeed. Criminal law is a first year course in law school. As a matter of fact, when I was in law school, we had a great study guide. I wonder if it’s still out there: it was called the Criminal Law Coloring Book. And it was very cute. I loved it. It had basic crimes, let’s say arson, and drawings of preparation, intent, setting the fire, in order to illustrate the concepts of mens rea, actus reas, all that. It spelled out elements of crimes with engaging imagery. Maybe I’ll send a copy to John Lauro.
But Lauro really outdid himself Thursday night on Laura Ingraham’s show. Early in his segment, he said to Ingraham that before January 6, Trump had voiced his support for Mike Pence to refuse to certify the Electoral College votes and send the presidential election back to the states. Then, a little later, Lauro said: “What President Trump said is, ‘Let’s go with option D. Let’s just halt, let’s just pause the voting and allow the state legislatures to take one last look and make a determination as to whether or not the elections were handled fairly.’ That’s constitutional law. That’s not an issue of criminal activity.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! OMG. (pauses for breath) HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Um … whut? That is exactly an admission of criminal activity! It’s an admission that Trump was urging Pence to violate the Electoral Count Act, which requires him to preside ceremonially over the counting and approve it. In fact, Lauro was describing a conversation that is recorded in the indictment! Go look. It’s in paragraph 93: “The Defendant and Co-Conspirator 2 then asked the Vice President to either unilaterally reject the legitimate electors from the seven targeted states, or send the question of which slate was legitimate to the targeted states’ legislatures.” [emphasis mine]
That does it. I’m contacting the publishers of the Criminal Law Coloring Book and suggesting to them that a Constitutional Law Coloring Book would be in order, and we have Trumpty Dumpty and his band of merry lawyers sketched in. Seriously. We’ll do a split screen effect. On one side of the book we’ll have Trump’s lawyers’ drivel and on the other side, we’ll have the actual law. Or maybe the First Amendment Coloring Book. That would also be helpful. Maybe we could pass them out to MAGAs with a box of crayons and see if anything sank in, ya spose?
In any event, that crack of Lauro’s is what prompted Lawrence O’Donnell’s comment. You don’t need to be a constitutional scholar to have gotten the import of Lauro’s ludicrous allegation.
They will say anything, do anything, attack anything, allege anything, lie about anything, repeat anything, proclaim anything, insinuate anything, and imply anything. Except of course anything that’s true. They are turning the country and its principles upside down. They are fomenting a furious army of acolytes who own a lot of guns. When Trump is convicted here, as it appears he will be, given that his lawyer just admitted to it, what will they do?
I’ll kick in my two cents: they’ll take their money, have a nice long vacation and write a tell-all. This is hired gun time and nothing more. Trump’s team of crackpot lawyers know that he’s guilty as hell. And they don’t care. As many criminal lawyers before them and better lawyers, I might add, have said: “I don’t care whether you did it or not, I care what they can prove.”
That’s where we are. We all know what Trump did. That’s a no brainer. And we basically all know what the prosecution can prove. The only issue now is wading through all the disinformation and lies promulgated by right-wing media and getting to the final resolution, which is probably going to be Trump with an ankle bracelet. If I had to make book on an outcome today, this minute, I would say conviction, home confinement, and I don’t know what to say about a pardon.
And whether Trump ends up running for president, with an ankle bracelet, is yet another one of those trumprecedented questions.
I remember hearing Lauro saying something to the effect that Trump was saying let’s send it back to the states and let them weigh in. I’m thinking BS! The states had their opportunity to weigh in, when they tabulated their votes and designated their state’s electors to the EC. There’s no option for the VP to call a do over!
IF that sonavab*tch gets home detention with an ankle monitor it damn well shouldn’t be at one of his resorts. It should be at Trump Tower, which who knows might be owned by either the state of NY or the federal govt. by then. And not in his old digs either. Nope, It should be in a small apt. with Trump getting the smallest bedroom. With a prison rack and mattress and prison blanket, pillow and sheets to sleep on. HIS meals should be prepared by some prisoner from the kitchen at Rikers or another jail or NY prison who for good behavior gets an “outing” for a month. And gets a better bedroom and bed than Trump! Meals prepared with the same ingredients that are used for breakfast, lunch and dinner at that prisoner’s normal digs on that given day. (Keeping the kitchen stocked is no problem, vendors that deliver to correctional facilities can have part of a delivery taken by the Secret Service and driven over to Trump Tower.
Except for the common room where Secret Service guarding Trump can hang out and the bedrooms where those stuck on overnight duty can sleep while one stays awake, all the windows get bricked up to the size on exterior prison cells and have bars set into them. No nice view of Manhattan for Trump!. Finally, since even prisoners are allowed exercise he can take a hour a day up on the roof in a fenced off area as close to the middle as possible – again so he can’t go enjoying a view. A high, ugly chain-link fence. It can have some free weights and a bench, a basketball and goal too. Just like prisoners would have in a typical prison yard.
THAT is what home confinement should entail for Trump. Personally I still think the brig at Quantico is where he should go. Or maybe the place at Northern Neck, kind of tucked out of the way but in a nice spot. Physically it’s not that far from DC but due to road and traffic for part of the way it takes about an hour to get to it from DC. But conditions aren’t that bad. it’s the place where Paul Manafort was and was getting away with special treatment (wonder what happened to the guards he bribed? and then he shot off his mouth cause he wanted still more special stuff. And got his butt put into the VIP wing of the Alexandria (VA) jail. He was a sad looking critter after that! Anyway, just as at Quantico Marines, or Army folks who handle military prisoners could ensure perimeter security at Northern Neck.
Whoever is writing the script for this farce should really put a bit more effort into the characters. Surely these lawyers can be less obviously, one dimensionally bad?