George Conway, who co-founded the Lincoln Project has always made no bones about being a constitutionalist. He sticks as closely to it as he can and he’s shrewdly intelligent. While most folks who claim to be constitutionalists, Conway has gone out on a limb to hinder Donald Trump as much as he can. He is one of Trump’s harshest critics and he doesn’t put up with the former president’s guff.
Kudos to him for that. Because we need people like Conway to prevent Trump from becoming president for a second punishing round.
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday morning, he took aim at Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court which asks that he be permitted to stay on the ballot in Colorado. Holding up a marked-up copy of the appeal, Conway called it “bizarre,” and tore it apart point by point, Raw Story reports.
Talking it over with hosts Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist said he thinks Trump’s attorney’s are overwhelmed based on his reading of the document that he seems to think is pretty messed up and likely won’t pass legal muster.
The noted attorney and former husband of Kellyanne Conway, an ex-aide to Trump, didn’t mince words, adding “This is a bizarre document, and I think it reflects the weakness of Trump’s position.”
“Actually, let me explain why,” he said. “if you took a seminar on appellate advocacy, the first thing they tell you is you have to focus in appellate court, at any level, on the two, three — sometimes four will be pushing it — key issues, the ones that you think are the weak spots in the decision you’re challenging. And that’s on steroids when you go up to the supreme court of the united states and file a petition for writ of certiorari.”
Indeed Trump’s lawyers have tried some pretty harebrained moves. The Nation highlights their attempts to argue that the January 6 charges should be dropped because the former president had a First Amendment right to dispute the results of the 2020 election. They went on to argue that the real winner of the election was “not readily verifiable or falsifiable,” meaning that the election result is not a fact, therefore the First Amendment protects those who, like Trump, dispute the result.
Um, really?
As The Nation notes:”It is absolutely wrong to say that the winner of the 2020 election (President Joe Biden) is not an objective fact. Nevertheless, the First Amendment does protect the right of people to be wrong and grossly ignorant in public.”
Conway points to a lot of weaknesses in the appeal, and the whole thing is written in a way that’s kind of embarrassing, really. Trump’s team all have college degrees of course, but sometimes you’d never know it.
Here, what trump did on page — on the inside cover,” Conway explained and held up a marked-up copy of the filing. “you’re required to put the question present. the question presented here in this blunderbuss, did the supreme court of colorado error in ordering president trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?”
The desperation being felt by Trump and his team is showing more and more each day. They’re grabbing at straws, and this is a losing strategy. In a way, it’s sad that these attorneys would debase themselves so desperately.
“he is throwing stuff up at the wall, or throwing stuff up in a zoo cage, and seeing what would stick,” Conway said. “so what this reflects, i think, is three things — the third of which is the most important.”
“The first is, i don’t know that he has real appellate advocates here of the sort that, if i were a former president and a billionaire, i would want to have. i mean, mark meadows the other day hired one of the best advocates ever to appear before the supreme court, paul clement, a former solicitor general in the bush administration. Trump can’t do that because people don’t want to work for him,” Conway said. “The second is, i think this question reflectes, you know, channeling trump’s narcissism, ‘oh poor me. i was screwed by many which ways.”
But Trump and his team keep trying to say that the ex-president didn’t take part in the insurrection, and to Conway, that’s the weakest position.
“The third reason, i think, is the fundamental weakness of his position,” conway added. “the fifth point in this brief, point five, roman numeral five, is he didn’t engage in insurrection. it is not number one. The reason is, it’s because his arguments are very, very weak. if you look at the question in terms of president trump should be removed from the ballot, it’s kind of a shocking notion to those of us who haven’t lived, until now, in an era where public officials engage in insurrection. But it was familiar to the people who enacted the 14 amendment.”
Article 3 of the 14th Amendment is very specific in it’s remarks relating to insurrection and holds presidents, vice-presidents, members of Congress and the Senate to the rule of law. But Trump’s team obviously buried this in their appeal and that’s not going to be in their favor.
“When you go through the issues one by one, the way lawyers are supposed to, his case looks terrible,” Conway said in conclusion.
Seems to me that Trump & Co. know they’re flailing so they’re grabbing at any excuse to keep Trump on those ballots (including Maine, where he was recently kicked off) and they are fighting a battle they aren’t going to win.
Here’s the clip of Conway appearing on Morning Joe.
I believe most of these are dictated by Traitor Tot himself and his third-rate ambulance chasers figure, hey, billable hours are billable hours, so they go along.