Behind the Trump team's bluster, a dark legal strategy

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Behind the Trump team’s bluster, a dark legal strategy

By Ruth Marcus July 17 at 9:01 AM

President Trump’s attorney, Jay Sekulow, seems to be an adherent of the just-yell-louder-school of legal argumentation. Sekulow has employed this tactic for decades, dating at least to his maiden outing before the Supreme Court in 1987, when American Lawyer magazine described Sekulow as “rude and aggressive.”

And so it was on Sunday, when Sekulow completed his second “full Ginsburg,” a reference to William Ginsburg, the hapless lawyer for Monica Lewinsky who did his client no service by making the rounds of all the Sunday shows. Sekulow makes Ginsburg look like Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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The better question is: What is this man shouting? Because if you turn down the volume and pay attention to what Sekulow is saying, you can deduce the disturbing outlines of where the president’s legal team may be heading. As Sekulow made the rounds Sunday, he signaled the expansion of the Trump team’s assault on former FBI director James B. Comey and, in turn, on the legitimacy of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. This is worrisome, because it lays the foundation for firing Mueller and/or issuing pardons and declaring, “Case closed.”

Thus, when Wallace asked Sekulow whether the Trump team’s repeated denials of dealings with Russia were now “suspect,” it triggered this disquisition:

“I think it’s important to put the framework here. How did we end up with a special counsel? Here’s how. … The FBI director at the time, James Comey, had a series of meetings with the president of the United States. In those meetings, he took notes. He put them on his government computer, put them in his government desk, and when he was terminated from (that) position, which you would acknowledge that the president had the authority to do, he gave them to a friend of his to leak to the press … to get a special counsel, and the special counsel is appointed.”

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/07/17/behind-the-trump-teams-bluster-a-dark-legal-strategy/

[mr_lebowski]

1. Asshole? You left out one key part of this story ... it goes something like this ...

"And then a political appointee, PUT IN HIS POSITION BY ONE P.I.N.O. NAMED DONALD J. TRUMP, reviewed these notes, and concluded that a Special Counsel was warranted in this situation, and this APPOINTEE, the Deputy Attorney General, has maintained throughout that this was correct decision under the circumstances, to the point where it's been reported he'd QUIT before he'd agree to fire said Counsel, absent evidence of malfeasance or incompetence on his part."

The release of the memo's to the Press ... did NOT directly cause the creation of the Special Counsel. Coincidence does not imply causality, ya Lumberg-looking loudmouth twerp!