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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump's Lawyers Seem to be Getting Desperate
By Jonathan Chait
March 12, 2018
10:16 am
A recent spate of leaks appears to be telling us something about Donald Trumps legal team. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trumps lawyers were considering an audacious demand of Robert Mueller. In return for granting Mueller an interview with Trump, they would require he commit to end his investigation of the Russia scandal within 60 days. Such a deadline would, among other things, allow witnesses with potentially incriminating information to run out the clock without giving anything up to the prosecution. There is zero chance Mueller would ever agree to it.
This weekend, BuzzFeed reported that Trumps lawyers are considering a legal challenge to block 60 Minutes from airing its interview with Stormy Daniels. This legal maneuver is even less likely to succeed than the other one. The pretext for the challenge is the non-disclosure agreement Daniels signed with Trumps lawyer, Michael Cohen. But 60 Minutes was not a party to that deal. (Indeed, Danielss lawyers argue that Trump himself was not either, since he didnt sign it, rendering it moot.) The First Amendment provides news media with strong protections, and the highest standard of protection applies to efforts to block a story from being published or broadcast. (As the noted legal scholar " target="_blank">Walter Sobchak understands, the Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint.)
Also this weekend, the New York Times reported that Trumps lawyer, Ty Cobb, has told friends for weeks that he views his position as temporary and does not expect to remain in the job for much longer. Cobb has reportedly counseled his client, President Trump, not to fire Robert Mueller by assuring him last year that the Russia inquiry would be completed by Thanksgiving (of 2017), and then, when that deadline slipped, by the end of the year, and then by the end of January. That is not the kind of trick a lawyer can keep pulling forever.
So, the lawyer who has been holding Trump back from taking drastic action seems to be on his way out. And Trumps lawyers are contemplating some extremely rash strategies that have about a zero percent chance of succeeding. Its difficult to know exactly whats happening behind the scenes, but these stories seem to indicate some sense of desperation is setting in.
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https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/trumps-lawyers-seem-to-be-getting-desperate.html
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)When the law is against you, pound the facts. When the law and the facts are against you, pound the table.
We're seeing the table sink into the floor at this point.
gibraltar72
(7,504 posts)gettin buggy.
Gothmog
(145,231 posts)rock
(13,218 posts)I'm glad to say!
poboy2
(2,078 posts)Fascist freak.