I started this post earlier this week but there’s a new example of crazy Trumper lawyering every day. I gotta give them credit for creativity as well as chutzpah for making some uh, inventive, arguments. The client is driving the train and it’s Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train; either that Casey Jones is at the wheel. Driving that train, high on cocaine…
ALL ABOARD THE LEGAL CRAZY TRAIN.
The Trump v. Vance case led off the week. The Insult Comedian’s lawyers were suing to prevent Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. from obtaining the holy grail of Trumpistan: the tax returns. The case should have been filed in state court since it involved an issue of state law, which is where the judge tried to bounce it back to before Team Trump appealed in federal court. I had a great conflicts of law professor, that’s why I remember this stuff. Hats off to the late Luther Love McDougal.
The craziest argument in this case is that a sitting president CANNOT BE INVESTIGATED. Judge Victor Marrero (not to be confused with the Louisiana town) wrote an opinion that was a giant fuck you to Team Trump:
The president asserts an extraordinary claim in the dispute now before this court. He contends that the person who serves as president while in office enjoys absolute immunity from criminal process of any kind.
Bared to its core, the proposition the president advances reduces to the very notion that the founders rejected at the inception of the republic and that the Supreme Court has since unequivocally repudiated that a constitutional domain exists in this country in which not only the president, but derivatively, relatives, and persons and business entities associated with him are in fact above the law. This court finds aspects of such a doctrine repugnant to the nation`s governmental structure and constitutional values.
Repugnant? That’s some strong stuff for a federal judge. Repugnant arguments result in indignant opinions.
You’ve all heard about the White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s nutty letter to the House leadership denouncing the impeachment inquiry. It read more like a campaign screed than a legal opinion. The effective bottom line of this remarkable document is that the constitution is unconstitutional. I shit you not: the impeachment inquiry is unconstitutional even though it’s in the document itself. So much for originalism.
The next lunatic argument comes from the Department of Justice. You know, the place where Bill Barr orchestrates the Trump cover up. DOJ lawyers argued that the 1974 Watergate grand jury case was wrongly decided. They did everything but invoke the Nixon-Barr doctrine:
On Thursday, two of Rudy Giuliani’s criminal associates were indicted by the Southern District of New York. The crazy came from one of their lawyers: former Trump mouthpiece, John Dowd. He claimed executive privilege before Congress because of their work with Rudy in Ukraine. Seriously?
Only days ago Dowd told congressional investigators that his clients would not cooperate in their impeachment inquiry. But beyond that blanket resistance he said that there were specific issues which would make any discussion of cooperation take a long time untangle. The key one was attorney/client privilege. With the client being the President of the United States.
<SNIP>
Dowd explained that Parnas and Fruman worked with Rudy Giuliani on his representation of President Trump and thus were shielded (at least on some topics) by the Attorney/Client privilege between Giuliani (Attorney) and Donald Trump (client).
Oops, it wasn’t executive privilege, it was derivative attorney-client privilege. Is this like when Paul Drake (not the cat) worked as a shamus for Perry Mason? Does Hamilton Burger know about this? How about Lieutenants Tragg, Anderson, or Drumm?
My mind is still reeling from the legal crazy of the week. I mentioned two rock songs at the top of the post: Ozzy Osbourne and Warren Zevon & David Lindley get the last word.
I’m still very concerned that higher courts will agree with Trump. Then the Republic and the Constitution are officially dead. We first examined this when the administration started to refuse to share documents with the House in April, as well as start to block people from testifying. This breakage of the constitution is now unprecedented. And what is the remedy? The military is with Trump. The police departments from coast to coast are with Trump. Are we suddenly inches away from a Pinochet-style junta? Who has the power to restore regular order?
Extreme and off the wall arguments don’t win in court. They lost at the appellate level yesterday after this posted. I think the Supremes will punt on most of these cases and let lower court rulings stand. It’s unlikely that they have 5 votes to uphold shit like a president can’t be investigated.
As far as I can tell, Trump has alienated the military brass with his erratic actions and refusal to listen. The chance of them supporting an effort to keep Trump in office is very. Just because Trump wants to be king, doesn’t mean he is one.