TWGB: The Best Plans

 

You know, I had forgotten all about the RICO case Trump wanted to make of Jim Comey and Peter Stzrok and Hillary Clinton and all the wild cast of characters Trump wanted to say schemed against him in 2016 and spoiled his precious presidency.  It got tossed, because it was hopelessly dumb.  The full tossing of this meandering paranoid rant was a thing of beauty owing to it's entirely giving of no fucks about not just pointing out that it isn't really a crime for people to say bad things about someone if they are true or just opinions, but that the complainant got his term in office and in no way was materially harmed by an investigation that had a legitimate basis. 

It also holds open the question of whether Trump's lawyers should be sanctioned for bringing such a case forward as if they were overindulging a toddler to his own detriment (as I think this case would have been uncomfortably revelatory of what Trump lawyer should not, for the interests of their client, want pursued. So what's the plan? 

Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said Trump will "immediately move to appeal this decision." 

"We vehemently disagree with the opinion issued by the Court today," Habba told CNN in a statement. "Not only is it rife with erroneous applications of the law, it disregards the numerous independent governmental investigations which substantiate our claim that the defendants conspired to falsely implicate our client and undermine the 2016 Presidential election."

This is the best strip mall shingle across from your golf club lawyering a man can probably eventually pay for. (Or not.) There are no governmental investigations that find that Hillary Clinton and Jim Comey conspired to make Donald Trump look like he was colluding with Russia by shoving a hand up his ass puppetlike and making him say "Russia, if you are listening?" and so on. The Steele Dossier and the pee tape nonsense came out once he was already president and didn't harm him anymore than, say, Mike Flynn being on the payroll of Russia and Turkey did, or Trump's own firing of Jim Comey and then telling anyone who would listen he did it to end the Russia investigation did. The idea of appealing is just a dopey way to keep whether or not Trump was a puppet of Russia in the spotlight which is the dumbest thing imaginable when Russia is not really popular at the moment if anyone noticed and goddamn, Streisand effect, anyone?  Compounded by why has he taken secret documents out of the White House?

It's really hard to open up a new conversation about whether Trump is compromised by foreign influences when it looks like he might be shopping US intel about to folks with money because he's as broke as his new social media bullshit. 

If Trump means to appeal this, he is simply one of the dumbest motherfuckers who has ever lived. The judge who rejected it literally straight up implied this was about airing grievances and that he judge-shopped his venue hoping to get the training-wheels bench neophyte he appointed in his lame-duck period.

You know, Judge Aileen "Loose" Cannon? The one whose decision regarding the Special Master DOJ is appealing in much the same tone Judge Middlebrooks had for Trump's LOLsuit?   Long story short--national security trumps Trump's hurt feelings over having to part with the stuff that never was his in the first place and he needs to suck it up and the court has no business indulging the big baby. This isn't about the records being classified, it's about their being the property of the US Government and Trump isn't president anymore, anyways. So there! (It's up to Cannon where she wants to go from here, but I don't think a Special Master is warranted and her job is the law, not helping the former president who appointed her save face or delay the necessary proceeding, especially when the investigation involves national security.) 

Isn't this just vexatiously litigious Trump, though?  You know, it would be funnier if he didn't try and use the DOJ as his legal bulldogs while he was president. It isn't funny, how he uses the court system. It's a function of privilege to know you can buy more access to the law than the other guy. It abuses the system to use it to abuse others. 

Anyhow, what else is down with Trump legally--like a dozen or so of his associates got subpoenaed.  The people with the most at stake in not giving up their words are folks who are totally going to say this is a purge and a raid (Bannon and others are deffo talking "raid!" about it). and cancel culture and since it involves 1/6, and whether Trump was using a PAC as a slush fund to control fake electors, I just want to say--looks like a legit set of questions to me. 

Anyway, from the legal strategy of people who now have to get lawyers because they lied in writing about whether Trump still had classified docs when he sure did, we get this kind of stupid. It's the stupid of exhaustion, I am sure. Lawyers should eventually sour on Trump, because proximity to his whole deal seems toxic. 

Anyhow, while you are thinking over how fair the system needs to bend its way backwards to demonstrate its value to Trump, I'm thinking about the documents in the boxes that got schlepped to Bedminster when Trump became aware DOJ was on their trail.  Yeah, Bedminster needs to get tossed by professionals.