If your favorite cocktail goes down better when accompanied by the tears of a clown, the Post’s review of Trump’s inability to hire good counsel might be worth your time. A couple of deep cuts:
[OAN host/moron] Bobb’s prior legal experience at the federal level consists mainly of a handful of trademark infringement cases on behalf of CrossFit during a stint at a San Diego law firm. […]
Trump’s other lawyer currently based in Florida is Lindsey Halligan, whose practice, according to a professional biography, focuses on insurance claims at residential and commercial properties. She was admitted to the Florida bar in 2014. A search of federal court records found no filings under her name. […]
[…] Trump is also being represented in the records dispute by Alina Habba, who leads a three-attorney firm with an office near Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Her professional experience includes serving as general counsel to a parking garage company. […]
He also has a couple of real attorneys, “real” in this context meaning that they’re former federal prosecutors. But, as the piece points out, he has a track record of not listening and not paying, which catches up with you after a while. That’s not new information, but the revelation that one of his lawyers signed a document saying that the classified material had been handed over, and it wasn’t, is new information about every lawyer’s nightmare client.
This made me chuckle:
Many of the president’s former lawyers, such as Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin and Justin Clark are not expected to be involved in the investigation’s defense, people familiar with the matter said.
No shit, because they’re probably witnesses!
Anyway, this is all self-inflicted. When Trump is desperate, he might just pay a giant retainer and fire his current set of slip-and-fall litigators. Until then, this is an amusing little sidelight to our common disaster.
sstarr
I hear Alex Jones’s attorneys are looking for work.
MattF
Apparently, Trump thinks Habba is hot.
andy
@MattF: yup. count on tr*mp to prioritize cup size in his hiring practices…
raven
So, another round well played by the attorney whom Trump’s other lawyers sayis so “pointlessly aggressive, and sloppy” that her “mere presence on the team increases the likelihood of Trump and his family facing court losses and legal peril.”
Dangerman
I bet they can find an attorney at Four Seasons*
* or at least a deal on some rainbirds.
cain
Also I suspect he hasn’t paid them!
NotMax
“This looks promising. ‘Tarbaby, Quicksand and Sinkhole, A Law Corporation.'”
//
WaterGirl
@MattF: Kind of reminds me a bit of Hope Hicks. All the T**** handlers are female.
narya
Anyone who was WH counsel is gonna be out anyway–their “client” technically isn’t TFG.
JPL
If trump is accused of a crime, and if it goes to trial, the jury should be sequestered.
just sayin
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Don’t wish to appear a noodge, but could you temporarily add the NYC meet-up post to the sidebar?
Thanks in advance.
Villago Delenda Est
Also, too, Patsy Baloney, Philbin, and Clark have professional reputations they need to mend, and representing TFG now will make that impossible.
Scout211
Oh wow, this is amazing. Some really good court rulings in the past two days. Yesterday, the appellate court ruling that transgender people are covered under ADA and now this:
Ken
@Dangerman: I was looking through the Wegner’s Groceries twitter earlier, and they re-posted one from Four Seasons Total Landscaping saying they were popping down to Wegner’s for some crudités. Now I’m waiting for Matt “Not That Guy” Gertz to chime in.
The Moar You Know
They had to go to the dumb one to find anyone who would say anything good about her.
TFG will end up with the death penalty over a parking ticket.
Redshift
@cain:
The article does mention his habit of not paying as one of his obstacles to getting good representation.
Though I thought the RNC was still paying his legal bills. At least, there was a story not long ago about RNC chair Ronna “Romney who?” declaring they would stop doing that if he became a candidate. (Which is a laughably empty threat, but still.)
Villago Delenda Est
@The Moar You Know: Um, that’s more like Oozy’s field of expertise.
dmsilev
@The Moar You Know:
Are you implying that there’s a smart one?
dmsilev
Please, please, please, let him end up with Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley as his attorneys.
Redshift
@dmsilev: Spoiler alert: neither is the smart one.
Dumb and dumber, maybe?
West of the Cascades
I’m disappointed at the Writers – “Jim Trusty” is a lazy pseudonym to use for a criminal lawyer right after the end of “Better Call Saul.”
Betsy
Jeff Jackson who is in the NC state senate now, and is running for congress in NC’s new 14th district. He’s dynamic and progressive, sends a tightly written and informative newsletter to his constituents. Great communication style. Super smart!
https://www.jeffjacksonnc.com
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Jackson_(politician)
ETA: dangit! I posted this in two incorrect threads. Probably due to my habit of keeping 500 tabs open.
Oh well. This is an open thread.
Redshift
@JPL:
Ooooooh, yeah! All the protections of (other) mob cases – sequestered, identities protected permanently, taken in and out of the courthouse through a non-public entrance, the whole works.
bbleh
Until then, this is an amusing little sidelight …
An amuse-bouche, as it were. Or perhaps given that it’s Trump, crudités.
bbleh
@Redshift: Dumber and dumberer
dm
@MattF:
Presumably the presence of the word “Trump” primed my visual system to read the conclusion of your sentence as “Jabba the Hut”.
Ken
@The Moar You Know: I hadn’t realized that parking garages were the most unethical institutions in this country. Is it the “each hour or any fraction thereof” charges? Those always irritated me.
sdhays
@The Moar You Know: Would a competent attorney sign a legally binding document professing a total lie concerning highly-sensitive national security documents? Or would a competent attorney keep representing a client who lied to her so that she signed such a document?
I suppose you could argue competent vs. ethical, but a competent unethical lawyer would be more clever than this, I would think.
Jackie
O/T Good news!
A new University of North Florida poll in Florida finds Val Demings (D) leading Sen. Marco Rubio (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 48% to 44%.
A new Marquette Law School Poll in Wisconsin finds Mandela Barnes (D) leading Sen. Ron Johnson (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 51% to 44%.
Ken
@sdhays: That sounds like one of Raymond Smullyan’s logic puzzles. The incompetent unethical attorney plans to lie because they are unethical, but inadvertently tells the truth because they are incompetent…
Mike in NC
Sadly, this country has an endless supply of unethical lawyers and dirty ex-cops ready, willing, and able to go to bat for TFG.
Cacti
Trump is a nightmare client for a few reasons:
HumboldtBlue
Jared Kushner wrote a book and it’s gonna get panned, badly.
Old School
According to her online bio, Alina Habba served as lead counsel on Trump vs. Mary Trump, The New York Times Company, et al.
So I’m going to assume she’s received some payment from Trump in the past.
VOR
TFG embodies the 3 worst things about a client for a lawyer.
japa21
@Jackie:
The Florida poll is nice but probably meaningless at this point in time. The Marquette poll is a different story. First, they have a good reputation. Second, for a challenger who just won his primary to be over 50% now is rare and very encouraging.
cain
@sstarr: All the hard work is done – so job well done. On to the next client! :-)
HumboldtBlue
@Scout211:
Yeah, I just saw that headline. Tarring and feathering should have been ordered as well.
RaflW
Isn’t Trump functionally broke, though? Maybe Kush can advance him some cash from the sure-to-be-bestseller he had ghostwritten.
sdhays
I have to admit, I’m a little surprised by his reputation for not paying his lawyers. Obviously, he has a well-deserved reputation for robbing any other type of vendor blind, but I was always given to understand that he didn’t play those games with his lawyers since they were the ones protecting him for the other vendors he stole from (Dummy 9/11 excepted since he “agreed” to represent Trump for free because the whole point was to abuse attorney-client privilege to discuss committing crimes and Rudy’s just incredibly stupid, even for the group of people who would jump at working for Trump “for free”).
Roger Moore
@Ken:
More likely, they plan on lying, but their lies are unconvincing. They don’t necessarily let the truth out, but everyone knows they’re lying so the lies have no effect except possibly getting them in trouble.
columbusqueen
@VOR: Yep, the client from hell. No one is going to touch him with a ten foot pole now, not even if he offers a huge retainer up front.
Anonymous At Work
Were I a desperate attorney with an interest in fame from OAN, I’d still insist on a retainer 4~5 times larger than needed and a clause that lets me keep it if Trump makes public statements about the case against advice. There’s no other way to control him that put a direct financial cost on his public (mis)conduct.
Roger Moore
@RaflW:
I don’t think we really know. His finances are so complex, it’s very difficult to know how much he owns and how much he owes. And then there’s the stuff like PACs he controls, which he may be able to use to cover his legal expenses. I don’t think his failure to pay people has typically been because he can’t; it’s because he’s too cheap. Even if he were clearly billions in the black, he would still try to avoid paying. That’s just who he is.
sdhays
@japa21: There is definitely something going on in Florida, although I wouldn’t bet on Demings leading either. There was another poll a week or two ago that showed her within the margin of error with Rubio, with, I think, a third of voters not really sure who she is. Rubio had a 52% unfavorable rating, which surprised me since I thought he was the least unpleasant Republican statewide office-holder in that state.
Rubio is much weaker than I thought he was, which means Demings actually has a chance – I’ve been pretty skeptical up to now that she has a chance at all. Still an uphill battle, but much more plausible than I had thought.
Captain C
@MattF:
“Don’t worry about your fee. I’ll pay you in sex. Sex with me. It’s the best, the very best. Everyone says this, they say, ‘Sir, you’re the best ever, please consider me on call for you whenever you need me.'”
HumboldtBlue
@RaflW:
Read the review of the book I posted above.
Danielx
I seem to recall that a firm representing him during (one of) his bankruptcy proceedings finally made a rule that he had to meet with at least two of the firm’s attorneys present because the fool lied so much that two independent participants needed to be able to attest to what was said during meetings.
Cameron
@Scout211: Damn, that has been a long-running case. I think it had already been around for a few years when I moved to Florida – and that was in 2016.
Captain C
@The Moar You Know:
Ivanka’s probably jealous of the attention that Daddy is giving his new attorney.
RaflW
@HumboldtBlue: That was how I started my day. Definitely brightened up an otherwise moderately unpleasant adventure in succumbing to the ‘rona after 30 months of being careful & lucky.
Captain C
@sdhays:
This reminded me of a line from a book I read long ago:
“Frankly, as an ethical attorney, I can’t tell you what I think you should do. An unethical attorney, were he here, would advise you to leave the country immediately.”
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
@MattF: Of course he thinks that. She looks like his daughter.
stinger
@Betsy: A rep so nice, you praised him twice!
sdhays
@Captain C: LOL.
NYCMT
Weisselberg flipped.
Baud
@NYCMT:
Oh good. The initial reporting was that they didn’t secure his cooperation as part of the deal.
ETA I see, he will testify against the company but not Trump.
Betty Cracker
@sdhays: Rubio is arguably the least odious high-profile Republican in Florida, certainly less evil and destructive than DeSantis or Rick Scott. But he’s a weak, empty suit, so people in every faction on both sides are contemptuous of him for different reasons.
If he’s reelected, it will be because DeSantis turns out the MAGA dopes and they bother to fill out the whole ticket, not because of Rubio’s personal appeal. It wouldn’t be the first time Rubio failed upward in that way.
I keep hoping that massive blowback on DeSantis and the rest of the Republican ticket for their radicalization over the past four years is flying under the radar. I don’t expect it, but I think it could happen.
David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Speaking of lawyers, I once got to sit next to Vincent Bugliosi on a plane. What a guy – very sweet, great sense of humor, epitome of dynamic.
Doug R
So even at age 76, trump is still searching for validation?
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I think it was always going to be hard to nail Trump personally on that stuff, but getting his company will hurt him deeply.
David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
News accounts say Dump was rejected as a client by the law firm of Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe
Baud
@Doug R:
Heh.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
[engage Montgomery Burns voice] Excellent.
Ken
@Roger Moore: We will get to see all sorts of explanations about how the Trump Organization isn’t legally the same thing as Trump, which may not pass some people’s smell tests.
We may also get to see excuses about how the businessman wasn’t aware of what was going on in his company, which should at least be good for a laugh, and may erode some support.
Scout211
deleted.
dmsilev
@David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
I expect him to try Wolfram and Hart next. They’re used to clients like him.
David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Ken:
Dump, himself, will say “I don’t know the Trump Organization, I wouldn’t know what it looked like if it was standing next to me, and it’s not my type.”
dmsilev
@Ken: Most rich people when setting up corporate shells who feel the need to self-brand chose names like “DJT Holdings” or something like that. Trump’s ego is such that he needed his full name plastered over all of it. Good luck separating him from it…
jonas
@RaflW:
He (somehow) recently renegotiated a bunch of debt that was coming due and sold assets (like the Trump hotel in DC) that have left him in pretty good shape financially, apparently. And then there’s all the political fundraising grifts, and so on. Trump’s not short of cash. He doesn’t pay his lawyers and contractors not because he doesn’t have the money, but because stiffing people beneath him is a power trip.
danielx
Also rejected by Gutt, Cutt and Flense. Once you get a reputation….
brantl
@The Moar You Know: When you wish upon a star,…….
danielx
@Baud: Might change his mind after a few days in Rikers.
danielx
@jonas:
He doesn’t pay his lawyers and contractors not because he doesn’t have the money, but because
stiffing people beneath him is a power trip.he’s a cheap prick.Shorter.
jonas
@danielx:
Distinction w/o a difference, imho.
sdhays
@Roger Moore: Aren’t most of his assets tied up in the Trump Organization? They’re going for the corporate death penalty, so theoretically it could wipe out most of his wealth.
Mallard Filmore
@Betty Cracker: I saw an article not very long ago about DeSantis. Put “desantis” “court” “forgery” into Google and out pops
https://www.muckrock.com/foi/florida-34/desantis-corrupt-felony-courthouse-forgery-cover-up-executive-office-of-the-governor-of-florida-127252/
Ahh. There is what I saw:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142957259
“Ron DeSantis’ Watergate: His cover-up of felonies of Lee County State’s Attorney”
Hopefully this problem will grow.
Layer8Problem
@dmsilev: “I expect him to try Wolfram and Hart next.”
Ah, calling in the heavy artillery.
sdhays
@jonas: It pisses me off so much that he was allowed to keep the DC hotel after he became President. It was explicitly barred by the terms of the lease, not to mention the Emoluments
ClauseSuggestion in the Constitution, but laws aren’t supposed to apply for cosplay rich Republicans.prostratedragon
@dm: You’re not alone.
Layer8Problem
@danielx: Yeah, I don’t know that Rikers has special accommodations for delicate-looking accountant types. He may find his new neighbors to be a little rough-edged.
Another Scott
@NYCMT: Thanks for the pointer. Twitter version:
(via Popehat)
Cheers,
Scott.
eclare
@Ken: Wasn’t that part of Kenneth Lay’s defense in the trial over Enron? That as CEO he had no idea what the company was doing?
Uncle Cosmo
@danielx: Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short also failed to return TFG’s voice mail…
Ruckus
@jonas:
Considering how he operates I imagine that even with recent incomes that you noted, he might be rather skint. He’s never been actually known to have a lot of loose cash laying around, he’s so often trying to screw someone that I’d bet his unseen outflow is rather close in amount to any income of any kind. IOW he’s not the smartest shark in the pool.
Ken
@Another Scott: I see Popehat has stuck with “18Hat793” for another day.
Maybe it’s like those displays some sound mixers use, where they have an indicator of the highest volume so far seen? Popehat will change the nym when a more serious crime comes along.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Are the judges also going to JAIL????
eclare
@Ruckus: House (property) rich, cash poor
NotMax
@The Moar You Know
“Granted, she’s no Orly Taitz. But then who is?”
//
kalakal
@Uncle Cosmo:
Sue, Grabbitt, & Runne have also turned him down
danielx
@eclare:
It was. Didn’t work, he died of a heart attack while awaiting sentencing. While on vacation in Snowmass CO near Aspen, in case there was any doubt that the rich are different from you and me.
eclare
@danielx: I thought I remembered that. When the Enron debacle happened, I was working for one of their competitors. It filed for bankruptcy soon after, and I quit soon after that.
NYCMT
The Times, late as usual, with a longer story.
So strange, like the mob prosecutions in the 60s and 70s.
PST
@HumboldtBlue:
I followed the link to see if Betty Cracker wrote the review.
Another Scott
ICYMI, Stephen Robinson at Wonkette – Hold Up, Is Alaska About To Send A Democrat To Congress?
Oooh. Make it so.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott:
That’s hilarious. I wonder if Todd was there.
trollhattan
@Jackie: Is there any way Rubio agrees to debate Demings? Because the idea of him trying to tough-guy her has me giddy at the chance to watch. Mind, that little prick (that would be Rubio, for those scoring at home) has enough ego to believe he can. C’mon Marco, fulfill some dreams here.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ruckus:
An article I read during his administration said that the golf courses he loves so much bleed money like water. All of his regular business ventures were in bad shape already before his behavior as president made his name radioactive. The assholes traveling from rally to rally don’t golf on his courses. Supposedly he was losing money faster than he was making it with his direct grifts like charging the Secret Service, it’s that bad.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I would prefer that we don’t use the term outflow in conjunction with Trump. Ew.
WaterGirl
@NYCMT: Wait, what? They were just saying last night that he was not cooperating.
WaterGirl
@Doug R: groan!
WaterGirl
@David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: ha!
Just One More Canuck
@dmsilev: it’s Fredos all the way down
Chip Daniels
@WaterGirl:
He WILL testify but will NOT cooperate, is what I’m getting.
WaterGirl
@Chip Daniels: Maybe one of our attorneys can clarify the distinction between those terms!
Jackie
@trollhattan: That’s a question for Betty Cracker. I’m a PNW Washingtonian. But, don’t MOST Senate races have at least one debate?
HumboldtBlue
@PST:
Hah!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chip Daniels: the NYT article suggests he will testify against the trump companies, but not The Beast itself or its spawn. “Mr trump knew nothing! nothing! about the trump organization” ? I don’t get it.
Another Scott
@Frankensteinbeck: Plus he has – at best – creative financial books. How would he know if someone else were skimming vast amounts off the top? He wouldn’t.
I’m reminded about the story of Long’s Chevrolet (from 1986):
Spy Magazine had TFG cashing checks for 13-cents, but that doesn’t mean he actually knew where the money was going…
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
@Jackie: You know what that means! Operation Voter Suppression are in the works! Sometimes these polls encourage this kind of shit.
If they piss off white women, that’s going to be the death of them.
HumboldtBlue
@Roger Moore:
I read a thread yesterday that it’s the humiliation that gets to Trump because he’s a narcissist.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
That sounds completely believable, both that the courses lose money and that he keeps them anyway for the status. Seeing this made me read about his course in the LA area, which sounds like a total money pit. It’s located on a cliff above the ocean on the Palos Verdes peninsula, which has a beautiful view but is geologically unstable. He was able to pick the course up for a relative song- $27 million for over 100 acres, which is fantastically cheap anywhere in LA- because it needed a couple hundred million dollars in repairs. The whole thing could easily collapse in a big earthquake.
Steeplejack
@sdhays:
Two odd things that continue to plague me with fits of rage when I’m reminded of them are the Trump International Hotel fiasco and the fact that Chris Christie completely skated on Bridgegate.
Trump International opened just weeks before the 2016 election; it seems like there should have been a way to block that until after the election to see who won and then force Trump to divest if he won. But it was a giant “fuck you” through his whole term.
And Christie is now rehabilitated back to being a bookable pundit on most of the channels, not just Fox. Blecch.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: I remember reading that the one in LA had a huge drop off in business once he started campaigning. The courses in Ireland and Scotland are losers, and Doral in particular is a sinkhole, just a bad course a bad spot even before he got into politics, as I recall. I think the ones in NJ and VA do better because of catering– your MAGAt bridezillas can’t pay enough for the chance of a photo op at their wedding, I guess. And he doubled the admission and/or annual fees at MAL before he was even inaugurated.
Redshift
@WaterGirl:
IANAL, but I listen to Preet Bharara’s podcast, but from what I understand, if you cooperate, you have to testify to everything you’ve done, you don’t get to pick and choose.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The thing with golf courses in the LA area is that all the land that’s within the TMZ that plausibly can be developed already has been. If there’s enough land open to build a golf course, it means there’s something wrong with the property that keeps people from building houses there. Here in Pasadena, for example, the only golf courses are built in floodplains where housing development is forbidden. It’s smart planning, really; they’ve found a somewhat productive use for land that would otherwise be unusable*. But it means that beautiful looking place you’ve decided would be perfect for a course has some kind of problem.
*Though I would be happier if the land were used for public parks that are usable by more people at one time.
Pennsylvanian
@danielx: yes that Enron fucker. I think he is also the one that died the year there was no estate tax. Fucker even got to take it with him. I like to think he’s choking on it I hell.
Kelly
@WaterGirl: The crooked judges have been in jail.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judges-sent-children-profit-jails-kickbacks-ordered-pay-200-million-da-rcna43538
WaterGirl
@Kelly: oh, happy to hear that! thank you
Dadadadadadada
And now I read that an ex-employee of Habba’s is suing her for racial and sex discrimination.
jayne
I still think there’s about a 50-50 shot Donnie pulls a “Hitler in the bunker.” You know he’s got a cyanide tablet lined up for Jared already.
SWMBO
@Jackie:
I voted today for Val Demings in the primary today. Let’s Go!
Quicksand
@NotMax:
Sadly I’m not admitted in Florida.