“Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump reportedly asked in early 2018.
Among other things, Roy Cohn was a mob lawyer. This is from NPR:
In March of 2018, Bob Bauer, NYU law professor and former White House Counsel under Barack Obama, wrote a piece for Lawfare called “The President and his Lawyers“ in which he observed that Trump didn’t look to his lawyers for legal advice, and in fact, often disregarded legal advice. Instead, he sent his lawyers to do his bidding.
It is therefore no surprise that Trump’s lawyers often end up in trouble. Michael Cohen, Trump’s long-time personal lawyer and fixer, pleaded guilty to committing crimes while representing Trump and Rudy Guiliani had his law license suspended for lying in court about the election and was told he is a target in the Georgia election interference criminal investigation.
Each of these lawyers has been sanctioned for filing frivolous lawsuits on Trump’s behalf:
- Alina Habba
- Michael T. Madaio
- Peter Ticktin
- Jamie Alan Sasson
- Jenna Ellis
- Sidney Powell
- Lin Wood
- Emily Newman
- Gregory Rohl
- Scott Hagerstrom
- Stefanie Lynn Junttila
- Julia Z. Haller
- Brandon Johnson
- Howard Kleinhendler
- Gary D. Fielder
Several of Trump’s lawyers are in the process of being disbarred, most recently, Rudy Giuliani is about to be disbarred for 2020 election legal work.
Now let’s have a look at the recent drama in Trump’s legal team.
May 17: Timothy Parlatore announced that he is leaving the legal team. He had been working on Trump’s defense in the stolen documents case.
May 20: Parlatore appeared on CNN and said he left because of “irreconcilable differences” with Boris Epshteyn, another lawyer who has been working as something akin to an in-house counsel for Trump, hiring lawyers and coordinating their efforts to defend Trump. (Parlatore said he still believed “very strongly” that the DOJ was “wrong” in how it was investigating this case. Specifically, he resented the fact that the DOJ was forcing Trump’s lawyers to testify.)
Parlatore said, “Epshteyn did everything he could do to try to block us” and it’s “difficult enough fighting against DOJ.” but that when colleagues are “trying to undermine you, to block you,” that it made it “so I couldn’t do what I needed to do as a lawyer.”
A few things to note:
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- If Epshteyn did block the defense lawyers from talking to Trump, that’s ridiculous because you can’t defend a client you can’t talk to.
- MPC rule 1.6 (most state bars have something like this) states that “a lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent. . .” Parlatore should not have been on TV talking about the inner workings of the defense team and thereby putting the client in a bad light. Among other things, this could help opposing counsel (in this case, the DOJ) determine weakness.
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One explanation for the Epshtyen-Parlatore conflict is that Trump’s legal needs are in conflict with his political and public relations needs. Parlatore could be positioning himself as a defense lawyer trying to provide a competent defense while painting Epshtyen as the guy in charge of Trump’s public relations and political needs, basically saying, “I couldn’t defend Trump because Epshtyen was in the way.”
Last week, when comparing McVeigh’s attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Okalahoma City in 1995 to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, I wrote this:
If you want an illustration of why Trump would put his political needs ahead of his legal needs, see this New Yorker cartoon:
(I’ve been saying for years that the criminal justice system cannot solve a political problem. A reader on Mastodon showed me that cartoon to illustrate my point.) In fact, an indictment or conviction may help Trump secure the Republican nomination.
See what Trump has done here? Anyone who is cool with Trump keeping sensitive government documents is implicitly agreeing that Trump is the True Leader who can do as he pleases.
“But wait!” you say. “He broke the law!’
In 2018, Michael Scherer writing for the Washington Post noted that lawbreaking was no longer disqualifying in the Republican Party and had even become a “positive talking point.”
On my FAQ page, I have a partial list of the prominent Republicans in Trump’s circle who have been convicted or who pleaded guilty over the past 5 years and I discuss why the modern Republican Party glorifies lawbreaking. In a nutshell, they believe that the administrative state put in place since the New Deal and Civil Rights movement is illegitimate and an unconstitutional exercise of federal power. They break the rules they don’t believe should be there. They want to return to a mythical time when white men could grab whatever they wanted. (See last week’s post and my general FAQ page for more.)
Parlatore Points the Finger at Epshteyn
Violating his duties as a lawyer by betraying confidences from inside Trump’s legal team was not the most shocking (or interesting) thing that Parlatore did on his publicity tour: He also accused Epshteyn of criminal obstruction.
Before looking at this accusation, I want to show you what normal looks like. This is a true story:
“The client was charged with theft by the feds. He told his lawyer he had some receipts. He gave the ‘receipts’ to the lawyer. The lawyer didn’t double-check them and handed them to the feds. The feds figured out that they were fake and added 18 U.S. Code § 1001 (making false statements) and obstruction to the list of charges. The lawyer immediately withdrew from the representation.”
My former mentor and very experienced criminal defense lawyer Mark Reichel took over as his defense lawyer. The lawyer who withdrew most likely has no criminal liability. He probably should have checked the receipts, but not checking isn’t a crime. When he realized he handed fake documents to the feds at the request of his client, he immediately withdrew from representing the client. How would you feel if someone involved you in a crime? That’s how most lawyers would feel at this point. Moreover, the lawyer who withdrew went from representing someone accused of a crime to a person who witnessed a potential crime. As a witness, he may be called to testify. If a lawyer testifies against a client, they are essentially adversaries, and a lawyer can’t represent his or her adversary because there is a clear conflict of interest.
During his TV publicity tour, Parlatore said Epshteyn tried to keep the team from conducting additional searches of Trump’s properties after the F.B.I. executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. To get the full impact of what Parlatore is accusing Epshteyn of doing, I’ve placed this accusation in the chronology of the Stolen Documents case:
January 2022: Trump returned 15 boxes to the National Archives. Afterward, Trump asked one of his lawyers, Alex Cannon, to tell the National Archives that Trump had returned all materials requested by the agency, but Cannon declined because he was not sure the statement was true.
February 2022: Trump wanted to release a public statement saying he’d returned all the government documents, but people around him persuaded him not to do that. (They kept him from releasing what they knew or suspected might be a lie.)
On April 12, 2022, after the National Archives made clear it was having trouble retrieving documents that Trump had taken from the White House, Former White House counsel Pat Philbin and John Eisenberg withdrew from representation. (This was a smart and prudent move.)
They were replaced by Evan Corcoran (a former assistant US attorney who was representing Steve Bannon in a separate criminal case. Reportedly other lawyers had declined the job, and Trump hired Corcoran during a conference call without vetting.)
Soon afterward: Philbin was interviewed by FBI agents because they considered him a witness to how the 15 boxes of material — some of it marked as classified — made their way to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
May 11, 2022: One of Trump’s lawyers accepted a grand jury subpoena that sought “any and all documents or writings in the custody or control of Donald J. Trump and/or the Office of Donald J. Trump bearing classification markings.”
May 25, 2022: Corcoran sent the DOJ a letter claiming that Mr. Trump had the absolute authority to declassify the documents.
(This was a nutso argument to make. Clearly Corcoran was doing Trump’s bidding.)
These events happened after the subpoena was accepted:
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- First, there was some to-do about boxes being moved out of the storage room. The mover of boxes seems to be the valet Nauta. (While the details of this remain murky I just don’t think “The Valet Did It” is going to fly.)
- To comply with the May 11 subpoena, Evan Corcoran searched for additional documents. According to a Guardian piece published on May 30, 2023, during his search, Corcoran was “waved away” from searching Trump’s office on the ground that all the documents were in the storage room.
- Corcoran drafted an affidavit stating that “after a diligent search” all responsive documents had been returned to the government.
- He gave this affidavit to Christina Bobb to sign.
- She signed the certification at Corcoran’s direction, “only after adding caveats to make the declaration less ironclad since she had not conducted the search herself.”
This raises a few questions, for example, why didn’t Corcoran, who did the search, sign the document? Why give it to someone else to sign? What explanation did he give to Bobb?
- June 3, 2022: When the feds visited Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the subpoenaed material, Trump’s lawyer gave the FBI agents and DOJ lawyer a “limited number of documents.” Bobb gave them the signed certification. The government personnel were permitted to visit the storage room. Critically, however, Trump’s counsel (we don’t know who because the name was omitted from the search warrant ) explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room, “giving no opportunity for the government to confirm that no documents with classification markings remained.“
Let’s stop and consider what is happening. Corcoran came into this case after the government suspected that Trump was jerking them around, lying, and trying to keep government documents. Corcoran didn’t search the entire premises but relied on others to tell him where to search. He then helped another lawyer write and sign an affidavit that all responsive documents had been returned.
Then a lawyer (perhaps Corcoran) did not let the feds look for themselves.
August 8, 2022: The FBI executed the search of Mar-a-Lago and seized: 33 boxes, containers, or items of evidence which contained over 100 classified records, including some classified at the highest levels. In the storage room alone, FBI agents found 76 documents bearing classification markings During the search, the FBI found documents in Trump’s bedroom, office, a first-floor storage room at Mar-a-Lago, and a “container in a closet” in Trump’s office. Three classified documents were located in the desks in the “45 Office.”
At this point, Corcoran and Bobb both knew that the document they gave the feds contained a lie and whoever stopped the feds from opening boxes may have been part of a coverup.
I Interrupt this Timeline To Bring You the Distinction Between Witnesses, Accomplices, and Accessories
An accomplice is a person who knowingly, voluntarily, or intentionally gives assistance to another in (or in some cases fails to prevent another from) the commission of a crime. An accomplice is criminally liable to the same extent as the principal. An accomplice, unlike an accessory, is typically present when the crime is committed. Jurisdictions will sometimes differ as to the definition of knowingly. Generally, “knowingly” is enough for the person to be aware of a specific fact. For instance, in the Court of Appeals case, State v. Allen, the court instructed the jury that a person acts “knowingly” with respect to a fact or circumstance when they are aware of that fact or circumstance.
Sometimes it isn’t immediately clear whether a person is a witness, accomplice, or accessory. Pro tip: If you witness a crime, make sure you don’t do anything that would change your status to accomplice or accessory.
And the story continues:
September 12, 2022: Federal agents seized Boris Epshteyn’s phone pursuant to a search warrant. (For the feds to seize a phone there has to be probable cause that the phone contains evidence of a crime.)
Late 2022: The feds revealed that they suspected Trump was still hoarding sensitive government documents. In response, Trump’s legal team hired two individuals to search Trump Tower in New York, the Bedminster golf club, an office location in Florida, and a storage unit in Florida where ultimately two documents with classified markings were found. Those documents were handed over to the FBI.
March 2023: A judge ordered Corcoran to testify and turn over his audio notes.
This was when we learned that Corcoran had kept detailed audio notes of the period between the acceptance of the subpoena in May and the arrival of the agents in June.
(Corcoran did his best to avoid testifying and turning over these notes, claiming that they were protected by attorney-client privilege. The court ordered Corcoran to turn them over after finding that the crime-fraud exception applied, meaning that the judge made a preliminary finding that the recordings likely contained evidence of an ongoing crime or coverup.)
According to the New York Times, “The level of detail in the recording is said to have angered and unnerved close aides to Mr. Trump, who are worried it contains direct quotes from sensitive conversations.” (Translation: They’re worried the records contain evidence that implicates them.)
This week, the plot thickened:
- We learned that the feds obtained a 2021 recording in which Trump bragged about having a government document related to Iran. In the recording he also said he couldn’t talk about it because he failed to declassify it when he was in the White House. The recording was made at Trump’s Bedminster golf club in July 2021, when Trump met with people helping Meadows write a book. The recording was made by an “aide” Margo Martin who regularly taped conversations with authors to ensure they accurately recounted his remarks.
- After obtaining the recording, the feds issued a subpoena for that document and “any and all” related documents. In response, attorneys for Trump turned over material in mid-March but were unable to locate the document discussed in the recording (!!).
Among other things, the recording establishes that Trump
- knew the procedures for declassifying documents,
- possessed documents he knew he wasn’t supposed to have, and
- had sensitive defense documents which brings in the Espionage Act.
The first question is: Where is the missing document?
The question from the beginning was: Why didn’t Trump just give back the danged documents? If he had, he would have had no criminal liability.
One reason: He’s willing for this to be his last stand. He wants to say, “I had the right to take those documents and anyone who doesn’t agree will feel my wrath.”
The next question is: Why are these lawyers going to so much trouble to help him?
Okay, back to Parlatore’s TV appearance. Palatore singled out Mr. Epshteyn as trying to keep the team from conducting additional searches of Mr. Trump’s properties after the FBI searched on August 8th.
In other words, Parlatore is accusing Epshteyn of criminal behavior (obstruction, or accomplice liability).
The Daily Beast reported that: “As Trump’s legal troubles keep growing. . . so, too, does the unwieldy band of attorneys” who wonder if one could turn out to be a “snitch” and “turn on the rest of the team.”
A snitch? Why would they worry about a snitch in their midst if none of them were breaking the law?
Mob lawyers are a thing. In 1985, Reagan’s staff commissioned a study of organized crime & found “renegade attorneys” who launder money, orchestrate perjured testimony, offer bribes, use law offices to plan crimes, etc. Mob attorneys are those who “protect the leadership of a criminal organization” and are part of the “life-support system of organized crime.’’
In this New York Times op-ed piece, James Comey, who knows a thing or two about enabling right-wing extremism, offers this insight into how an otherwise intelligent and rational lawyer might end up criming for Trump. Comey says, “Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary” when working for Trump and are “shaped” into “channeling” Trump. Speaking from “four months of working close to Mr. Trump and many more months of watching him shape others,” Comey says:
“It starts with you sitting silently while he lies, both in public and private, making you complicit by your silence. In meetings with him, his assertions about what “everyone thinks” and what is “obviously true” wash over you, unchallenged . . . because he rarely stops talking. As a result, he pulls all of those present into a silent circle of assent.”
“Speaking rapid-fire with no spot for others to jump into the conversation, Mr. Trump makes everyone a co-conspirator to his preferred set of facts, or delusions. I have felt it — this president building with his words a web of alternative reality and busily wrapping it around all of us in the room.”
“I must have agreed that he had the largest inauguration crowd in history because I didn’t challenge that. Everyone must agree that he has been treated very unfairly. The web building never stops.”
“From the private circle of assent, it moves to public displays of personal fealty at places like cabinet meetings. While the entire world is watching, you do what everyone else around the table does — you talk about how amazing the leader is and what an honor it is to be associated with him . . .”
“Of course, to stay, you must be seen as on his team, so you make further compromises. You use his language, praise his leadership, tout his commitment to values.”
“And then you are lost. He has eaten your soul.”
This brings me to a question people have asked me on social media:
“Why would any lawyer choose to represent Trump knowing what Trump is like and the fate that often befalls his lawyers?”
Some may be aspiring Roy Cohns. Some may want the fame of a high-profile client. Some may agree with his politics. Some may be true believers. Some may join the team because Trump needs a good lawyer and they want to offer legal assistance. But before long, they may find that Trump has eaten their souls and turned them into accomplices.
“Teri, will all these lawyers be charged with crimes?”
I have no idea, but I suspect that the DOJ will give them every possible chance to come clean (or as clean as they can). Of course, the only way to do that is to testify against Trump. Whether they will or can remains to be seen.
The search warrant of Mar-a-lago included, in addition to the storage closet near the pool, a search of Trump’s office and personal quarters. So this suggests someone provided testimony (or taped proof?) that Trump had documents in these rooms that were responsive to the May 2022 grand jury subpoena requesting documents be returned to NARA? In other words, there remain areas of Mar-a-lago (occupied guest rooms, for example) that were not searched by the FBI in August 2022?
Hey Teri!
Over the course of reading your entry I had several comments and questions but when I finished I am left with but one overarching question.
Why has noone, especially anyone feeling being his handmaid is bad for their future, publicly called him out for being precisely who and what anyone who so much as took one psych course knows, that being he is a dangerous and severely damaged psychiatrically Malignant Narcissist with Sociopathic and Sadistic co-maladies.
Why are people trying so hard to treat him like a normal when it’s so obvious he’s the polar opposite. He is a clear and present danger to the survival of our country and our way of life.
This is a good question. Maybe I’ll jump off with this for this weekend’s blog post (assuming there is no indictment in the next few days)
I’m afraid I had to do a quick skim read today. But our JJ reward is not there. Thank you for the lesson. I’m coming back to “Witness, accomplice & accessory” many times.
Hi Teri. Great post, as usual.
It’s been over a year since many of us had first heard of this on-going document investigation and there have been more alarming developments, almost on a weekly basis, since. Between Donalds many denials, obfuscation, lies and the inevitable pronouncement of “absolute authority” concerning his actions, it’s obvious that a great crime has been committed here.
Not just the theft of government documents, classified or not, but items that concern national security. That’s more than just icing on the cake, that’s severely endangering everyone in this country (reminiscent of the global pandemic?).
I asked this question at the beginning of this atrocity, so I risk getting the same answer but how is it that his many properties have not been made crime scenes to more fully investigate this hellacious violation? And the scrutiny of his many employees, patrons, clients et.al seems warranted as well.
Perhaps this has been done but I think the press would be all over the closing of Bedminster or Mar-a-Lago.
Be gentle,
R
First, thank you for your writing style. It’s conversational and I always feel like we’re just sitting together having a chat.
Second, I heard a commentator months ago say this whole Trump/PRA Debacle could be a good thing because the PRA has never been tested in court and this could solidify its validity.
In a dystopian world, could this reach SCOTUS and they declare: sorry this act is unconstitutional so no crimes committed here. Trump do what you want!
I jnow that’s a far out question. Feel free to ignore!
won’t happen.
You are always so optimistic. This court would make a ruling like that. Probably do it on the shadow docket, unsigned opinion, no explanation, in the middle of the night. Sorry. I have zero faith that this Supreme Court would ever do the right thing. Even the legal thing…
Did the Supreme Court agree with Trump hat the election was stolen and hand him the presidency two years ago? What about his Special Master case? Did the Supreme Court agree to hear that case, agree with him, and decide that he was allowed to keep stolen documents?
I am not “optimistic.” I have been watching what the Supreme Court does and what it doesn’t do. You should do the same.
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
~Thomas Paine
At some point, despair can be so overwhelming to our perspective that holding onto facts and reason becomes a bridge too far to see across, let alone cross with confidence.
Thanks for keeping us all in check with the facts.
Perfect, thank you!
This entire piece is brilliant! The only item I take issue with is a single word in this single line:
“They want to return to a mythical time when white men could grab whatever they wanted.”
There was a time BUT it certainly was not “mythical”. Maybe archaic is a better term? Because there truly was a time not that long ago when white men legally could do nearly anything they wanted to their property, which included their wives and their slaves. Not a myth. Then came a time afterward when perhaps those things became illegal yet it didn’t matter because the juries were comprised only of other white men.
Trump, and men like him, enabled by a corrupt segment of the legal profession (and with a wink and a nod from the entire legal profession) has been able to live in that archaic time his entire life (so far).
I totally agree. I thought about that word. Fascism imagines a mythic past. I think that those years were not as idyllic as they imagine.
That’s an interesting point. Worth noting that the Kennedy administration was referred to as ‘Camelot’ and that the dissolution of traditional white privilege began under JFK’s successor, LBJ. I’ve been struck by Casey DeSantis’ quasi-Jackie Kennedy style (including hats and white gloves). Maybe there’s more to this “return to Camelot” meme than meets the eye.
Why did Trump continue to hang onto the documents and stall NARA? I know that people have proposed psychological explanations, most of which seem plausible, given his character. But I can’t help but wonder if there was a more urgent, practical reason, that is, that the Saudis wanted an actual set of documents to cement their relationship with Trump, proof that their money – to Kushner, to the PGA rival tour – had been well spent. It would be interesting, if possible, to line up the timeline above, with a second timeline detailing when where and how Trump met with MBS and his thugs, that is, see if the two timelines can be dovetailed together. In other words, the delay was in part about keeping the documents until the agreed-upon handing over time, the announcement of the LIV business.
And I admit, all of the above is wholly speculative. Still, I think practical explanations should be preferred to psychological ones, given that the latter can easily become projection exercises.
Thanks for laying all this out. I find that your excellent analyses usually dovetail excellently well with Marcy Wheeler’s work in the same area.
First of all, tRUmp *IS* a mobster, so perforce all of his lawyers must be mob lawyers, whether or not they act like a stereotypical mob lawyer (Roy Cohen).
> Pro tip: If you witness a crime, make sure you don’t do anything that would change your status
Some folks need reminders.
> Why didn’t Trump just give back the danged documents?
> A snitch? Why would they worry about a snitch in their midst if none of them were breaking the law?
I keep thinking of this clip (about 5 seconds long from 1967):
https://youtu.be/R2QHAxtDLOo?t=46
I recall a Golf Tournament at Bedminster, in July 2021, I believe. Mohammad bin Salman attended this tournament, which set off my s*it detector. I felt certain that Trump was feeding him state secrets. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Saudi leader, Jarads sugar daddy, is in possession of US secrets from nuclear to Iran. I hope the DOJ is looking into this potential aspect of the crime. Kushner clearly owes Mohammed bin Salman a lot. Nice quid pro quo
Dead on target. Didn’t the Donald want to build in Saudi?
And remember trump in Saudi doing the solidarity brotherhood dance and putting his hands on the oath globe swearing his all to them
Great writing,Teri. This reminds me of a children’s book I used to read to my daughters, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Just like the gentry in the story, no one is willing to speak the truth for fear of being severely punished.
I’m still not convinced that the grave contains only the remains of the ex-wife.
Same. My understanding is she was actually cremated. The pall bearers shouldn’t have been struggling to carry that casket. I know it sounds a little out there – but Trump IS a sociopath & a mobster. I think the one thing Teri & I disagree on is the notion that Trump (and Putin) may be threatening various people in the GOP, such as Lindsay Graham
Teri – going back to a question I asked last week.. what or who was the tipping point in the GOP getting the upper hand? The New Deal was a long-ish time ago. The Republican party didn’t seem to be really insane/go off the rails until the Reagan era. My instinct is to blame Pat Buchanan. I see Trump as almost Buchanan reincarnated so to speak. If the GOP hadn’t let Buchanan scare them into giving him airtime at the convention, I wonder if the anti-democracy/Christian Nationalists would have been kept at bay.
AGREE! Doesn’t the Mob “bury” the evidence?
A few thoughts or maybe a rant: 1. Sociopaths typically use the tsunami of words to control. 2. Charm is always suspect or should be.
I do not believe we can keep ignoring the wisdom and experience of those who are experts on sociopathy and dangerousness. They spoke out from the beginning warning us. Even President Obama thought the constraints of the Presidency would hold him. Nothing will contain him now. It’s too late.
We listen to experts all the time. Dr. Fauci was relied on to help us contain a virus and keep us safe. Unfortunately, with sociopathy and dangerousness we ignored the experts at our own peril. The Trump virus spread. And in the gap pundits and ordinary people with zero training use diagnostic language, without sophistication, and dilute the impact. In my view, political and legal solutions do not replace psychological expertise. Comey should have consulted with the experts. He would have known how to prepare himself better from Trump. There are many Comey-like folks out there who let the experts knowledge sit on the table.
“Late 2022: The feds revealed that they suspected Trump was still hoarding sensitive government documents. In response, Trump’s legal team hired two individuals to search Trump Tower in New York, the Bedminster golf club, an office location in Florida, and a storage unit in Florida where ultimately two documents with classified markings were found. Those documents were handed over to the FBI.”
This still has me wondering if the documents they “found in the storage unit in Florida,” were moved there right before being “discovered,” in order to hide the fact that they were, in fact, actually found at Bedminster or in trump tower.
I so appreciate your professional offerings. You really help non-legal minds like my own get better at cutting to the chase of not only what is actionable within Trump’s never-ending circles of malfeasance but better also (and quite remarkably!) how they tie together. The tie together is what I’ve really been missing. I retired in 2015 and as such I have felt continuously exhausted by Trump’s media circus’ and manipulations. Clearly, his legal exposures are now tightening and yet as you describe, he must continue his craft. As I read your blog I can’t help but envision in a Gary Larson-esque way Trump sitting in his evil genius kitchen pouring lawyers into a sifter and with the “wheat” at hand he moves on to his next bidding and then another fresh round of sifting. It’s a never ending cycle. Thank you, Teri.
Trump spelled out exactly why he kept those documents when he stated (somewhat accurately) that “Nixon got $18 million for his papers!” And though friends scoff at me when I say this, I firmly believe that Trump is low down dirty enough to have stored documents in Ivana’s casket prior to burying her on
the 1st T.
Pretty sure he thinks attorney-client privilege means his lawyers can commit crimes for him without either of them getting in trouble.
What might Parlatore be facing for talking about Trump’s legal team? Do you think he’s doing this to rehabilitate his reputation? I think it would make him less employable since he’s shown he can’t be trusted to keep quiet.
so far that looks like the kind of thing that gets reported to the bar by an angry client but then not much happens.
Thanks, Teri. Looks like a sh*tshow for 2024.
I read someplace where a case was made that “Trump does not act like a mob boss, he IS a mob boss.” I agree.
The thought of Trump being elected again and pardoning himself and all his MOB is chilling to say the least.
I liked Legal AF’s laying out the case that Fani Willis may take the whole mob down using her RICO skills and growing evidence. State convictions can’t be pardoned by the President ??!!!!!!!!!!! That is a comforting thought. Go Fani!
Thank you Teri!~!
I appreciate your writings so much!~!
Your brilliant and informative post is akin to my thoughts of “stop the madness” whenever the document issue is mentioned. I am grateful for any rational thought process on this issue, so thank you. Lies compounded upon lies, sucking the juices out of previously functional human beings. The parched bones are not yet dust, but soon will be.
Uh . . . . and JJ?? Did he fail to appear for his photo shoot?
Thank you Teri for providing us with such helpful information. Your highlights are very enlightening
Maybe the document is ‘lost’ because he sold it like a pardon.
But where’s the dog?
I’m trying to imagine what happens if someone dares tell Trump that what he’s spouting is not true. He just ignores, talks over, argues, kicks them out… ?
Ask former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, 2nd Chief of Staff, John Kelly, etc.
Example 1. CNN town hall. Licht is another one who sold his soul.
LOL, and can’t wait for the second GOP town hall tonight on CNN with Niki Haley.
I think a good example of what happens is to watch what happened during his debates with Hillary Clinton. He ignored, talked over, insulted her on national TV. Recently, he did the same on the awful town hall CNN aired. He is able to quickly and aggressively lie and argue, spouting as many as half a dozen lies in just one sentence. Steamroller.
Bingo. Teri’s excerpt from Comey’s explanation is exactly how Trump operates in any venue. Most recently on CNN.
There’s a name for it: “Gish Gallop”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop#:~:text=The%20Gish%20gallop%20%2Fˈɡ,or%20strength%20of%20those%20arguments.
And I have long maintained that had HRC not tolerated his antics she would have walked away with the election. Instead she seemed weak. And I think this is one reason more women didn’t vote for her. They saw her as rolling over by staying with Bill after Monica Lewinsky and this was another example of how she caved to men. At a minimum she could have schooled him in proper behavior and said that she would not continue under these circumstances but would simply issue statements related to the questions that she was asked.
Makes me wish TFG and Elizabeth Warren would have a public debate. Might make cage match fighting seem tame.
Teri, great summary of the situation.
Great post, Teri
I believe the most likely explanation as to why the missing document can’t be found is that it never existed.
Steve M. agrees with me:
“Trump was waving a document around that he insisted was proof he was right and Milley was wrong, but he wouldn’t show it to his visitors? Then he was bluffing. If the document in his hands actually said what he told them it said, he would have shown it to them. He doesn’t care about classification.”
https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2023/06/trumps-bullshit-on-given-day-is-not.html
Steve also said:
“Trump’s bluster on one day won’t necessarily be consistent with his bluster on another day. When it suits him, he says he declassified every document he took from the White House — but when he wants to claim he’s right in a dispute, he says a classified document proves he’s right, and it’s too bad other people can’t read it.”
This is not to say that I don’t believe he’s still hiding documents. I’m certain he is, and I’m certain the DOJ and NARA know he is. But it’s awfully convenient to Trump that a document by General Milley just happens to support Trump’s own opinion, even though Milley’s public remarks are directly opposite to Trump’s claim.
This is a very plausible theory.
It was my first thought.
I got laughed off the page on Twitter! lol
Maybe that is the document he ate, or flushed down the toilet
It would not be the first time that Trump lied about something. 😉
Just maybe, Trump Lied about what was on the document in Bedminster to talk himself up? That is why they cannot find it. Also kind of confusing trying to find on the timeline when the DOJ got the tape, and subpoenaed Margo Martin or was the tape found after Margo’s testimony?
I had a hard time sorting it out. The reporting I looked at wasn’t clear.
If Trump’s story and all of the investigations and cases against him were written as a crime novel, it would hard to make it believable. Therein lies a big problem, that a former president has done so much to put himself into the center of all of these cases involving crimes that nobody in their right mind would commit. The bigger problem is that there are people in this country who still to this day support such behavior.
As usual, you are a brilliant detangler of the web of deceit an d a fantastic explainer of what happens in the complicated mess that surrounds Trump and his lawyers.
I second your comment! Thank you, Teri!
Extraordinary work on explaining the unexplainable!! So very appreciative of being able to know these facts as truth instead of the usual tired and often repeated lies. THANK YOU!
( Yes, I was yelling excitedly )
Thank you for your in depth research!
Always appreciate your clear, concise explanations of Trump’s malfeasance. So much criming on his part, it can be hard to follow. Thanks for putting the facts in order and keeping us up to date.
As usual, good post, thanks!
Having lived in N NJ 1973-83, I’ve heard of mob lawyers, who remind me a bit of tobacco lawyers, similarly combative, dedicated to success for their not-so-nice clients. The latter help companies that prosper by nicotine-addicting folks during adolescent brain development (~10-24) and of course many die of it.
UCSF’s Industry Documents Library has >90M pages of internal company documents, which make fascinating, if often horrifying reading.
By the 1990s the tobacco companies were using outside lawyers to hide things via attorney-client privilege (a bit like Trump not using email):
Tobacco scientist: new chemical formulation, more addictive, yeh! …
send memo to outside lawyer, who forwards it to relevant executive,
and also handles the return path to hamper discovery.
These end up being *RESTRICTED*, unless lawsuits have managed to get that status undone. The database still has many of them, for example, here are 500+ .. of the 288K total found by privilegecode=ac
https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/results/#q=rutnik%20privilegecode%3Aac&h=%7B%22hideDuplicates%22%3Afalse%2C%22hideFolders%22%3Atrue%7D&cache=true&count=522
For a great (and true) legal thriller, Sharon Eubanks was DOJ lawyer who led RICO lawsuit against tobacco companies and battled against tobacco lawyers.
https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Acts-Racketeering-Against-Industry/dp/0875530176