Pleading The Sixth ?

[toucana]

A recent report by Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News has disclosed that at least four top U.S. law firms have declined approaches from the White House to represent President Trump over the Russia investigations in the past few weeks.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/four-top-law-firms-turned-requests-represent-trump-122423972.html

In some cases it seems that major law firms were wary of the potential reputational damage they might incur from representing the POTUS, while others apparently saw him as the proverbial ‘client from hell’ who would pay no attention to any legal advice he was given. They took the view that Trump could be relied upon to shoot his own legal team in the back by tweeting whatever thoughts came into his mind at 5:30 a.m based on his endless consumption of right-wing cable news channels and lunatic conspiracy theory websites, regardless of whatever script he had been given by his handlers the night before.

“The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen “ said one source, referring to the fact that Trump has previously been known to bilk both contractors who had done work for him, and the very same law firms he had subsequently used to fend off those angry creditors.

An even more intriguing reason hinted at by some law firms is that they also foresaw potential conflict of interest issues given that many of them already represent major U.S. banks and financial institutions. The implication of this is that subpoenas for financial disclosure evidence in respect of international money laundering allegations may have already been issued against such banks in respect of Trump’s business empire and its financial dealings.

http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/banks-subpoenas-trump-laundering/3340/

The reluctance of top law firms to take on Trump’s brief may help to explain why the POTUS has chosen the firm of Mark E. Kasowitz as his chief legal representatives. The New York based practice has little experience in conducting cases of this type. They are mainly famous for lower court litigation against critics of Trump’s business methods, cases that are often eventually abandoned. They also specialise in defending state Enterprise Corruption, and RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations) cases brought by federal authorities.

[toucana]

In depositions taken back in 1993 in Atlantic city NJ, Trump's own lawyers said they used to meet with him in pairs to avoid being lied to, or having to deal with problems arising from 'memory lapses', according to an article published last October by Buzzfeed.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kendalltaggart/trumps-lawyer-we-met-with-him-in-pairs-to-avoid-lies?utm_term=.rcN36LXzd#.vioMWm0Zx

[zetreque]

In depositions taken back in 1993 in Atlantic city NJ, Trump's own lawyers said they used to meet with him in pairs to avoid being lied to, or having to deal with problems arising from 'memory lapses', according to an article published last October by Buzzfeed.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kendalltaggart/trumps-lawyer-we-met-with-him-in-pairs-to-avoid-lies?utm_term=.rcN36LXzd#.vioMWm0Zx

The electorate already had access to all this information and much worse and yet chose to be screwed in the behind.

[toucana]

Former president Trump has just parted company with his entire legal team (yet again) according to media reports.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55876035

The departure of Butch Bowers and Deborah Barberi was reportedly a mutual decision.

Mr Trump's trial for incitement to insurrection starts on 8 February 2021.

Senators will be asked whether to convict him on a charge he incited insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, when five people died.

Greg Harris and Johnny Gasser, two former federal prosecutors from South Carolina, have also left the team, the Associated Press reports. They were reportedly unwilling to defend Mr Trump on the basis of alleged election fraud.

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-impeachments-trials-373faf83e36e5fd2e4be1bdf46b406ff

Josh Howard, a North Carolina attorney who was recently added to the team, has also left, CNN reports.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/30/politics/butch-bowers-deborah-barbier-trump-impeachment-team/index.html

It is now unclear who will represent Mr Trump during the trial.

"We have done much work, but have not made a final decision on our legal team, which will be made shortly," tweeted Trump advisor Jason Miller in response to the reports.

Donald Trump’s favoured attorney Rudy Giuliani is unable to represent him, because Giuliani is potentially a co-conspirator who was standing beside Trump on the same podium on 6 January calling for “trial by combat” just before a lynch mob stormed Capitol Hill and attacked Congress

Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and other lawyers who were assisting former president Trump in his fruitless attempts to overturn the 2020 US presidential elections have apparently departed after being hit with $1.3 billion defamation law-suits from Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems Inc.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-dominion-idUSKBN29D1X9

According to CNN, the newly departed team of attorneys had not yet been paid any advance fees, and a letter of intent was never signed.


Footnote - The Sixth Amendment is the one that guarantees the right to a speedy trial, the ability to call witnesses in your own defence, and the right to be assisted by competent legal counsel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

[charon]

and the right to be assisted by competent legal counsel.

Not to say willing :-)

What I don't understand is that they're querying the legitimacy of this impeachment at all. I wish the law or Constitution, or whatever it is, was clear.

Either it's legitimate or it's not. Either you can impeach a former president or you can't. That's a simple yes or no. Every time they want to take action on something this circus starts up again.

I'm all for democracy but for god's sake get the rules straight. Then we can all stop running round in circles.

And I wish they'd stop calling it a trial. It's not a trial because the outcome, just like last time, is a foregone conclusion. In a real trial none of the 'jurors' would be eligible to serve because of completely obvious partisan bias.

All this stuff offends my sense of order. Take it to the Hague!

[toucana]

There seem to be two clear legal precedents for proceeding with the impeachment of an official after they have left public office.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/13/impeachment-blount-belknap-trump/

The impeachments of Sen. William Blount in 1797 and Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876 both occurred after the men were no longer in office. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) specifically cited Belknap’s case in his defense of the trial.

[Blount] is one of the lesser-known Founding Fathers now, but for much of his life he was as esteemed as the ones we all remember. He fought in the Revolutionary War, was a North Carolina delegate at the Constitutional Convention and signed the Constitution. He then moved to what is now Tennessee and became governor of its territory. When Tennessee became a state, he became one of its first U.S. senators.

Blount was also a land speculator and borrowed money to purchase huge swaths of land in Tennessee and the surrounding areas. After a land-market crash left him in dire straits, he developed a plan to save himself: He conspired with Britain to help it gain control of Spanish Florida and Louisiana, which would make his land purchases valuable again. In 1797, a letter he wrote detailing parts of the plot made its way to President John Adams, who had it read on the Senate floor. The other conspirators soon confessed.

The House and Senate investigated and debated whether the new Constitution allowed senators to be impeached, or only expelled. They did both — Blount became the first senator to be expelled, and the House voted to impeach him. As the Senate prepared for a trial, Blount fled back to Tennessee.

Debate among Federalists and Democratic Republicans swirled around whether they had the right to (a) impeach a senator and (b) impeach an official who had already been expelled. In the end, they voted to stop an impeachment trial without deciding the question. Blount remained popular in Tennessee and held state offices until his death. He was the only U.S. senator to be expelled until the Civil War.

The other case was that of William Belknap in 1876:

President Ulysses S. Grant’s longtime secretary of war. Belknap had a reputation for hosting lavish parties, and both his first and second wives went about Washington extravagantly attired.

“Many questioned how he managed such a grand lifestyle on his $8,000 government salary,” according to the Senate Historical Office.

A House committee then solved the mystery: Belknap had been accepting bribes in exchange for profitable contracts, going back to 1870. As the House voted on whether to impeach him, Belknap raced to the White House and resigned, believing this would save him, then “burst into tears.”

The House voted unanimously to impeach him anyway on five counts, including “basely prostituting his high office to his lust for private gain.”

The Senate decided it did have the authority to try former officials and conducted a trial in April and May of 1876. A majority of the Senate voted to convict but failed to meet the two-thirds majority required. He was acquitted and faced no further legal action for his crimes.

[Serpent]

Here is a time, if ever there was, for loyal supporters in the legal profession to step up!
Anyone?
What - no MAGA patriots? They all want to get paid???

[charon]

the impeachment of an official

Come on, toucana, this is about ex-presidents, not ex-Senators or ex-officials.

They don't know, do they? Presumably because they thought it would never happen. Time to amend the Constitution.

Presidents are fallible, and some of them are more fallible than others, especially when they think they're protected.

[charon]

Here is a time, if ever there was, for loyal supporters in the legal profession to step up!
Anyone?
What - no MAGA patriots? They all want to get paid???

Not if they think no one worthwhile will hire them in the future.

[TheVat]

Alan Dershowitz would do it. And high-profile scumbags are kind of his specialty. At 82 and wealthy from all his books, he's not too worried about future hiring prospects.

[bangstrom]

Better call Saul Goodman.

“He likes his women like his lawyers. Only the very best with the right amount of dirty.”- Saul Goodman

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-saul-g ... -tv-quotes

[charon]

Alan Dershowitz would do it. And high-profile scumbags are kind of his specialty. At 82 and wealthy from all his books, he's not too worried about future hiring prospects.

I doubt Trump would be interested if he's 82. He'd have to be pretty sharp. And if he's supporting Trump maybe he's not that sharp :-)

[toucana]

Donald Trump has named two new attorneys to represent him in his forthcoming Senate impeachment trial. They are David Schoen and Bruce Castor.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/01/trump-impeachment-attorneys-david-schoen-bruce-castor

David Schoen previously took on legal representation of the high-profile pedophile Jeffrey Epstein - shortly before he was found dead in a prison cell in 2019 - and also claims to have represented “all sorts of mobster figures”, including “a guy the government claimed was the biggest mafioso in the world”. He subscribes to the conspiracy theory that his former client Epstein was murdered.

Bruce Castor is a former district attorney known for his decision not to prosecute Bill Cosby in 2005 after Andrea Constand accused the comedian of sexual assault.

In 2017, Castor sued Constand for defamation, claiming she destroyed his political career. Cosby was convicted and sentenced the following year.

[TheVat]

"Only the finest people."

I was amused by Schoen's statement in The WaPo that his real interest in the case is the Constitutional question of bringing an impeachment action post-term. It's funny how Trump's hired hands become fascinated by legal questions that were settled in the 19th century. Forget the reason he's actually being tried.

[Forest_Dump]

To be honest, I have absolutely nothing good to say about Trump but in this case I am not at all convinced he is guilty. Sure he was nuts about loosing. He did call for protests at the capital but nothing illegal there. He did use some rhetoric but no worse than Twisted Sister saying you have to fight for your right to party. But so far I have heard nothing where he invited people to breach the building or commit other criminal acts - just fairly standard hyperbole and rhetoric. I definitely do think those who broke into the capital building etc should be prosecuted hard but I don't yet see Trump's part being all that exceptional.

[toucana]

Trump's new legal team have already gotten off to a great start by misspelling 'United States' on the title line of their very first substantive legal filing in the forthcoming impeachment trial.

"Only the the finest people" indeed.