TNR: “‘Trump’s Idiot Lawyer Tries To Defend ‘Murdering Rivals Is Okay'”

It must be incredible having a job as a Trump lawyer/spokes shill. I wonder what the psychology is behind it? Do you wake up in the morning and tell yourself that you’re really an actor and you’re just going out there to do a job? And after all, on a certain level, we’re all actors out there doing a job, right? Is that how Alina Habba and the others do it?

Or, do they not even bother to think about it and as long as the payments are showing up at the bank, anything goes? And whoring out a law license is no biggy? And it isn’t to a lot of people. I personally have known three lawyers who have been disbarred and one who chose to resign before he was disbarred. One of the lawyers was an out and out crook and very Trumpian. He believed he was invincible. Another one was desperate for money and started doing stupid things, namely stealing from the clients. She could have gotten a job way before she started doing things, but chose to continue freelancing and then branched into stealing.

And the third guy was actually a pretty decent fellow. But, he developed money problems and also started stealing. Money problems are like being president. Remember Michelle Obama’s quote, “Being president doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are?” Money problems are like that. They don’t change who you are, they reveal who you are. And if your first instinct is to be a thief, that’s because it was inside you to begin with.

So, let’s take a look at what Alina Habba did yesterday and today in response to the hearing before the three appellate judges pertaining to presidential immunity. The New Republic:

Trump’s lawyers presented his case for immunity to a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, and to say it went badly for Trump’s team was an understatement. At one point, lawyer John Sauer bizarrely argued that a president could face criminal prosecution—say, for ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate someone—only if he had been impeached and convicted first.

Trump attorney Alina Habba, who seems to have a habit of saying things that actually hurt Trump’s various legal cases, tried to defend Sauer’s defense that evening. She argued that Judge Florence Pan, who asked about the Seal Team 6 assassination, was using “hypotheticals that do not currently exist.”

Let’s just stop there for a moment. The very nature of a hypothetical is that it doesn’t exist. That’s why it’s a hypothetical. And they’re used in legal analysis all the time for the purpose of understanding a concept. Habba sat in her law classes just like the rest of us who went to law school and heard professors say, “Let’s change the facts. What if….” and then you apply the law in question to the hypothetical. And then she goes on, and yes, amazingly, somehow it manages to get worse.

“The real facts are so easy to win that we have to now argue the slippery slope argument of, ‘If he kills someone, will he be held accountable?’” Habba said on Fox News. “He didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t cause an insurrection. He didn’t get charged for it. But they’re using hypotheticals to frighten America.”

They’re using hypotheticals to frighten America? Oh, my gawwwwd. If this woman can “fake being smart” as she claims to be able to do, this is not it. She better start faking and yesterday.

Saying that Trump hasn’t killed anyone—but he has the right to get away with it as long as Congress doesn’t impeach him—is a terrible argument. Pan’s question, moreover, was intended to demonstrate that there are certain cases when a president does not have immunity from criminal prosecution.

It’s also unclear what Habba meant when she said Trump “didn’t get charged for” causing an insurrection, because he has been—twice. Once when the House voted in January 2021 to impeach him for incitement of insurrection and again in August when special counsel Jack Smith indicted Trump for his role in the January 6 riot.

Trump has repeatedly argued that former presidents can’t be criminally charged for actions related to their official responsibilities. He did not explain how overturning an election was related to official presidential duties.

No he did not and he won’t be able to. That’s because overturning election results are not part of a president’s duties. The fact that we’re even discussing this shows how far we have fallen as a country. But again, the reason for that is that we have only one functioning political party right now, the Democrats. The Republicans gave up. And this is the result of their giving up.

I guess that sowing pure confusion is all that is left to Habba. God knows she’s got no legal argument to stand on. Meanwhile, Don Junior was over on Newsmax talking about how in “law, reason and logic” his father is right. Wonderful. Maybe Junior and Habba can double team in a defense of Trump.

Another day, more idiocy. Welcome to 2024.