Not that P-Word; get your minds out of the Russian gutter, y’all. P in this instance is for pardons. I hate to agree with the Insult Comedian about anything but the question about pardoning Michael Cohen was indeed stupid. Unless you’re Tricky Dick, one has to be charged with a crime before being pardoned. There are no charges against Trump’s fixer thus far so there’s nothing to pardon. Additionally, if Cohen committed crimes in the Empire State, Trump cannot pardon him for those, which means the state Attorney General or local District Attorneys can go after him. I somehow doubt that Andrew Cuomo has any plans to pardon Cohen.
There’s an army of ill-informed amateur lawyers out there. They’re the people who think Michael Avenatti is Clarence Darrow reincarnated because he’s good on teevee. One of the most dangerous things in the country is to get between Avenatti and a microphone. I think the guy lives in CNN and MSNBC’s studios. I’m worried about his health: one cannot survive for long on a diet of green room muffins and donuts.
Back to the plague of amateur lawyers. It’s the curse of our time that every loud mouth with a social media feed considers themselves an expert on everything. Hell, I used to practice criminal law but I don’t fancy myself a legal expert. I still know a helluva lot more than the average cable teevee host or “twitter personality.” Btw, if anyone ever calls me a “twitter personality,” just shoot me before I make like Fred Fucking Sanford:
We appear to have gone from fake news to fake lawyers to fake heart attacks. So it goes.
Repeat after me: it’s easier to talk about pardons than it is to issue one, the whole Scooter Libby thing notwithstanding. The amateur lawyers would have you believe it was the legal equivalent of a Cohen pardon test drive. It was not: Libby was convicted of crimes for which W refused to pardon him much to Cheney’s disgust. Cohen is merely under pressure from federal prosecutors to flip on the Trump crime family. Yo, Donald, talking about your underlings flipping makes you look guilty. Hey, that means he’s fucked up and been truthful. Anything can happen.
A quick note about Rudy Giuliani joining Trump’s defense team. I laughed for 5 minutes solid when I heard this news. He hasn’t been involved in criminal law in 30 years and his claim that he can end the Mueller probe is bluster and bullshit worthy of the Insult Comedian. I wonder if Trump is aware that James Comey used to work for Rudy. It could change everything. Anything can happen.
Since people like it when I post a side-by-side picture of Michael Cohen and a fake wise guy, here’s one with real wise guy Sammy The Bull Gravano when he was a witness for Comey who then worked for Giuliani. It’s a fucking small world after all.
I have no idea what will happen between Cohen and Trump and neither does anyone else. My money is on Cohen ratting out Trumpy. That would be the smart move. Of course, Cohen is deeply stupid. So, anything can happen.
The last word goes to Tim and Neil Finn:
A question, then, about the pardon of Scooter: Do you think Donald Trump (or someone in the Justice Department) made a thorough review of Libby’s prosecution, conviction, sentencing, and subsequent commutation of his sentence by George W., and think, “My goodness! What a singular miscarriage of American jurisprudence. We should issue a full pardon for Mr. Libby and remove this stain on our justice system.”
I obviously think Libby was pardoned for far different reasons. Of all the things President Trump has to occupy his squirrelly little brain right now, pardoning Scooter Libby wouldn’t have been in my top 100 to-dos for Trump.
One story I’ve heard is that di Genova and Toensing lobbied Trump. They’re Libby’s lawyers. Then Trump did it on an impulse.
That’s plausible; Trump might have felt he needed to throw di Genova and Toensing a bone when he couldn’t hire them. But what do di Genova and Toensing get out of a Libby pardon? “We have pull with the president”? No idea.
When the full story comes dribbling out, I’m confident it will be worse than it first appears. In this administration, the whole story is always worse.
Michael Avenatti isn’t the second coming of Clarence Darrow, but he’s a damned good lawyer. I honestly doubt Stormy Daniels could have chosen a better advocate for her case. He’s been all over the tube, yes, but it’s not like he’s been spouting nonsense. I haven’t heard him say anything that wasn’t pretty much right on the money, and he’s had several of his predictions proven true so far. One thing is for sure: Michael Avenatti is a better lawyer, by an order of magnitude, than anyone on Trump’s team.
Just to reiterate:
https://athenae25.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/pardonoprah.jpg