This is getting ridiculous. Yesterday Trump’s documents case lawyers went to the DOJ to hold a pow-wow with Special Counsel Jack Smith to try to convince Smith of all of the perfectly valid reasons, at least in Traitor Tot’s delusional mind, of why he shouldn’t be indicted for holding national security secrets hostage.
This is not rare. According to former federal prosecutors, it’s pretty much standard procedure before indicting to invite defense counsel in to make their case, see if they have relevant information the prosecution doesn’t that could alter their track. In fact it seldom works.
Apparently it didn’t work this time either. Within two hours of the meeting ending, just enough time for the lawyers to get to the office and advise El Pendejo Presidente of the outcome, His Lowness took to bullsh*t Social for an ALL CAPS Trumper tantrum about how he couldn’t be indicted when he did nothing wrong. Nice way to spoil the remaining suspense, moron.
Trump’s initial, knee-jerk response to the negative news could have been forecast with more reliability than tomorrows weather. MSNBC reported today that FrankenTrump is going Salvation Army shopping for more 3rd rate ambulance chasers to join his document case defense team.
This is pure Trump mentality, never do anything without attaching a superlative to it. It’s also imbecilic. Trump already has lawyers the way that Frat houses have empty beer cans. But apparently The Mango Messiah has never heard the old adage that Bigger isn’t always better. And neither is more.
I mean, let’s just look at Trump’s current roster of bail bond hangers-on. You already have at least two Trump Mar-A-Lago documents case attorneys who have been dragged in before the grand jury under the crime-fraud exception. And he has another one who now has recused herself from the case, and has a criminal lawyer of her own for submitting a falsified document to the federal government, and trying to hang on to her law license.
But that’s just the first floor, housewares and lingerie. Let’s take the elevator up to the second floor, electronics and furnishings.
It seems like not a week goes by, two at the most before another Trump lawyer dives overboard from the SS Trumptanic, and then immediately get in front of a network camera to bitch and moan about their fellow lawyers on the Trump Mar-A-Lago team. And when they do, by far and away the one who needs the largest umbrella to protect against their pissing contest is my favorite lowlife legal scumbag, Boris Epshteyn.
At this point I must remind you of something I wrote of long ago, but has never been more prescient than it is today. When Trump ran his organization, he ran it on one principle. Never let your senior executives get powerful enough, or chummy enough to pull a coup and put you out to pasture.
And so one of Trump’s senior management hiring criteria was, Will all the other senior executives hate him? and Will he hate all of the other senior executives? And there sat Trump, like the Emperor Caligula in the royal box, avidly watching the professional gladiatorial death matches going on underneath him. He was safe and insulated.
And from where I’m sitting, that’s exactly what Trump is doing right now. The simple fact that Evan Corcoran appeared before the grand jury with no immunity tells us that Corcoran gave professional legal advice. He had no legal liability. But by doing that, he knew what it wasn’t the advice that Trump wanted. And so Trump has other lawyers who will give him legal advice that he does want to hear. And sitting at the head of the room, like a teacher when finals are being done, is the legal carnival barker Boris Epshteyn.
Trump’s legal strategy here is so transparent you can read a newspaper through it. Trump will be indicted. He’ll promptly fundraise off of it and try to stir up civil unrest, which largely won’t happen. He’ll stall for as long as he can to maximize his fundraising and political advantages.
And when he’s convicted, as he almost certainly will be, he’ll appeal.
And one of the first things he’ll appeal on is incompetence of counsel. Never mind that he hand picked his criminal defense team from a roster that could fill Yankee Stadium. He’ll want a do over with a fresh slate of ambulance chasers.
It won’t work, but The Tiny Thumbs Dictator is quickly running out of options. Remember, Trump is totally transactional. He has spent all this time convincing himself that he’ll never be indicted on federal charges. But now that it’s becoming clear that he will be indicted, all of his attention is on the next transactional step. Which means that his lawyers suck. Good luck with that.
No competent white shoe lawyer wants anywhere near this mess. Even a generous, up front 7-figure retainer is not worth trying to defend this life-long criminal. He can’t shut his mouth, won’t follow counsel’s advice and is incapable of thinking two steps ahead, forget strategery. For the first time in his miserable life, he’s learning actions have consequences and that you can’t bully a federal prosecutor. I just hope at the end of this legal soap opera, we are able to strip him of his pension and secret service. Getting him off the taxpayer’s dime is more important to me than jail time (which we would pay for as well).
A normal person would, facing the charges Trump is facing and having a hundred million or so in a “legal fund PAC” spend thirty or forty million right effing now to hire a few high powered, accomplished white collar lawyers experienced in DC and with political savvy and do EVERY THING THEY TELL HIM. Starting with shutting the f**k up, and then answering every question they have with complete honesty so they know exactly what they will have to contend with. However, Trump is who he is and he’s not changing for anyone, even with all that’s on the line. He’s sometimes whined “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” but awful a person as he was Cohn was the last person who could lay down the law both literally and figuratively and keep Trump in line. He’d never tolerate that from Cohn these days. But would the fireworks of their epic parting of ways be entertaining as hell?
Malignant narcissists heed no advice from anyone.
I have a question I’ve pondered for a bit, and Tuckedd end comment about “getting him off the taxpayer’s dime” made it reappear. Trump’s a 77-year-old man in ill health and under a lot of stress. It is possible/probable he will die from natural causes in the next few years. Even though he may/may not be convicted of any or all his alleged crimes, he is still a past president and, as such, would have all the funeral rites that are traditional for a deceased president. Is there any way we can stop everything except the month of flags at half-mast? Keep that tradition because we are honoring the Office of the President—-but lose anything that would commemorate the man!
Traditionally former Presidents and/or their families plan the State Funeral holders of the Office are entitled to. I shudder at the tacky spectacle Trump’s will be. Had the Senate convicted him on impeachment charges he no longer would have been entitled to the honors of a State Funeral. However if I’m not mistaken IF he’s convicted of Seditious Conspiracy then that would also disqualify him. So there’s one last chance to deny him an honor he’s never deserved. I’d be delighted to wake up to learn his traitorous, beyond worthless a$$ died during the night, but a bigger part of me wants him to live long enough to be convicted and hauled off to prison. And the (admittedly small) hope Garland will sign off on a Seditious Conspiracy count in a January 6 set of indiecments and the jury convicts him on that count.
That is an EXCELLENT question, and one to which I have no ready answer…The one thing that I DO know is that Trump would NEVER be buried at Arlington National, since he is not a combat veteran. Please recall that while His Lowness was President, he tried to have the GOP ram through a law that would grant Presidents and Vice Presidents Arlington plots…It was laughed out of congress…
Sorry Murf but you’re belief is incorrect. Due to the fact a time will come when there is no more space it’s more difficult to qualify for a burial space at Arlington and yes, combat veterans are at the top of the list of criteria but… It’s not a requirement and Officials that hold high enough positions in the government are eligible. That of course would include Presidents and Vice-Presidents even if they never served in uniform at all. For example Ruth Bader Ginsburg is buried with her husband at Arlington. I wouldn’t worry about Trump wanting to be there however. EX President or not he’d demand a “bigly”, very tacky and gaudy mausoleum. No simple ground burial for someone super duper special like him! Knowing Trump, he’d even want it placed smack dab in the middle of the space used for important ceremonies like special funerals held there for truly special people, and where Presidents and/or other dignitaries deliver Memorial Day speeches. JFK has a special site but he was after all a combat vet from WWII as we all know. His brothers Bobby and Ted are buried slightly up the hill from him in simple graves with simple markers. Both served but not in combat. Joe Kennedy Jr’s plane which was packed with explosives blew up on a classified mission in WWII. He and his co-pilot stayed onboard as the plane made its first radio controlled turn to ensure that system was working, a standard practice on those dangerous missions. His radio transmission that they’d armed the explosives was the last time anyone heard from him. A couple of minutes later, before they were scheduled to bail out and parachute to safety the plane blew up. The chase plane that was recording the mission was damaged some but landed ok. Since it was a bomber packed with high explosives only some pieces were recovered, but not remains of Kennedy or his crewmate. He does have a cenotaph (a headstone/grave marker over a space with no one buried in it) at Arlington however. Anyway, my point is that since he wasn’t convicted after being impeached Trump still qualifies for all the bells and whistles of a dead President when his time comes. As I said in a comment elsewhere, I think (but am not certain) that a conviction for Seditious Conspiracy would also disqualify him from all that including a burial at Arlington.
Nixon died in 1994. He had a state funeral attended by all living ex presidents. President Clinton attended the funeral. Nixon flew in state to California on what was then air force one. He had military pall bearers. Billy Graham did the funeral service. Will trump get that, maybe so, even with his convictions. Although not all living ex presidents show up.
Yes, he’s in deep, deep do-dos, but what I’m waiting for is his legal well to run dry. The pool of lawyers who are willing to work for him in this dog-eat-dog environment AND face the likelihood of never being paid must be converging rapidly on zero. And then there’s the MAGA effect for them to consider: Making Attorneys Get Attorneys. What legal professional with two functioning neurons to rub together would sign up for this abuse? Are we going to have the satisfaction of seeing the court appoint a lawyer to defend him at some point?
Is it possible to find a clown car full of attorneys more F-troopy than the F-troops he’s already hired? Surely he’s reached the bottom of the barrel by now.
Wherever he’s buried, it will be a public record. I find it comforting to know WHERE I should go to piss on his headstone.