Smart, Educated, Experienced and Skilled


POST 1058

Sheila Markin posted a fine explainer and updater of what has happened to Trump’s lawyers. Her piece caused a sociological question to bubble up to top of mind.

I’ve wondered many times about all those attorneys, every one smart, highly educated, experienced and with considerable skill at their craft. The wonder, of course, is why they allowed themselves to be lured to crash onto the rocks by the siren song of the Orange Siren.

Of course, Trump deserves legal representation, as any dirt ball con man would. He deserves the presumption of innocence, too, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of his guilt. But,

Why would these smart, educated, experienced and skilled people aid and abet Trump in breaking the law?

Why would they associate themselves with Trump’s defamatory statements and invitations to violence?

Why would they file idiotic motions, like an absurd claim of absolute and permanent presidential immunity and why would they in good conscience attempt an inversion of the Presidential Records Act?

Why would they risk their law licenses aiding or defending illegal actions, lying to authorities and saying the most obviously idiotic things?

Why would they do such abhorrent things, knowing that the stink of Trump will be all over them and it won’t wash off for the rest of their professional lives?

Indeed, why would they do anything for Trump, knowing that there is a better than even chance that they won’t get paid for their work?

These Trump lawyers paid a huge price in dollars, work effort, time, hopes and dreams to get JD appended to their names. Then they betrayed their integrity and threw it all away – but for what?.

In her courtroom statement regarding her Georgia RICO plea deal, Trump attorney Jenna Ellis declared with great contrition, “If I knew then what I know now . . .”
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Really? She didn’t know that Trump would do with her what he does with everyone, including all of his former lawyers? She didn’t know that loyalty with Trump is a one-way street leading only to Trump and that at the first sign of an advantage for himself he would discard her like a used motor oil rag? She hadn’t a clue that she was joining a team that was conspiring to violate the law and the Constitution, working to overthrow the will of the people? It never occurred to her that the infamous Green Bay sweep was nothing less than a traitorous conspiracy, a coup plot?
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I have the same questions for all the rest of the lawyers who schemed to replace electors chosen by the people with phony “alternate electors”; lawyers who cajoled Mike Pence to violate his duty and the Constitution; who demanded pointless vote recounts and filed over 60 evidence-free lawsuits. Eastman, Giuliani, Chesebro, Powell, Habba, Navarro and more – there just doesn’t exist a remote possibility that they didn’t know in advance what they were getting into and, once there, that they didn’t realize that they were violating the law. So please, Jenna Ellis and anyone else with an, “Oh golly, I really didn’t know” claim, just shut up.
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I think I’m right – that this legion is of lawyers who are are smart, educated, experienced and skilled. And I believe that they are also boundlessly foolish at best and perhaps far worse. That will be confirmed when we find more of them censured, some imprisoned and later, some selling insurance because they’re no longer allowed to practice law.
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Meanwhile, I suspect that I’m not the only one wondering why these smart, educated, experienced and skilled people would do what they’ve done. And I wonder why some of them are continuing to promote and defend Trump’s dishonesty, when the obvious truth is almost blinding. So please, if you have some insight, even just a flicker of light to shine in this dark cave of the undermining of everything we claim to value and believe in, please share it in the Comments section below to help all of us understand.

Today is a good day to be the light

  • _____________________________
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  • Fire the bastards!
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3 Responses to Smart, Educated, Experienced and Skilled

  1. Steve April 10, 2024 Reply

    I have an acquaintance who served as a Trump lawyer for a period of time, he’s a smart guy, and certainly could appreciate the pressure he might receive to do it Donald’s way, I just think it was the unrelenting pressure on anyone with ambition to be in the spotlight. That one oral moment, somehow believes that somehow something good is going to happen Is a mixture of naïveté and blind uncontrollable ambition.

  2. David Lindgren April 10, 2024 Reply

    Jack, dealing with my client’s past can only continue for so much time. We work on creating a challenged but realistic future. Bitching and complaining re the past and the present can keep us stuck.

    We need to place more importance on projecting a healthy future in our country, ie government, rather than being obsessed with damage Trump has done. We are at a critical point, need I tell you, where we need to support the Biden Administration to finish what they started. That might sound a bit too cute but what is the alternative? We live in a destructive political climate. And every day, some other Dunning-Kruger dunce offers their attention-getting attention (not you, Jack). Our problem-solving selves can’t avoid getting sucked down the drain of pessimism. Biden is in Chicago today. Will he get some reasonable coverage. We shall see?

  3. Sheila Markin Nielsen April 10, 2024 Reply

    Many people assist a rising dictator because they make the personal calculation that they will be in power along with the dictator. I think the main motivator for people like Jenna Ellis is a wish to “better” their career prospects by helping the mob boss succeed. Others have drunk the Kool-Aid like John Eastman and Ken Chesebro who are Christian Nationalists at heart and want to turn the country back 100 years or more to a time when they think things were better, more manageable and where White men were more powerful. They want the strongman to succeed and will do whatever they can to help make that happen including bending the law, and rewriting reality.