Discussion: 'Denuded And Shrinking': WH Counsel's Skeletal Staff Unprepared For Dem Control

TPM Article Topics
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If you are even remotely competent why would you ever consider working in this WH? The best they will be able to do is hire half-witted true believers.

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The Trump Organization (including taxes), the Trump campaign, and the Trump spawn aren’t subject to claims of “executive privilege”. The Dems can do a lot of damage from that direction.

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“20 dedicated White House lawyers”

So what is considered a normal number of lawyers?

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It’s a gateway to many possibilities. A Fox News gig. Regnery Publishing book deal. Speaker fees. Lobbying. Getting hired on someone’s campaign staff. Working at any of a hundred grifting PACS and conservative think tanks. Corporate board appointments.

Incest is best.

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Don’t worry. Kudlow has this under control.

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Over the last twenty years, say? 30-35.

Depending partly on how Trump plans to deal with the House, he may need as few as 30 or as many as 45.

Not all have to be new hires. Some can be seconded from the DOJ or elsewhere.

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So? It doesn’t have to have any legal merit to assert it. That’s almost the point in doing it for Trump. Force a succession of courts to say you can’t do something, then rail against them as your losses mount and thus rally your base. Meanwhile every Dem request is a tedious, arduous slog, each in the mind of Trump and his supporters evidence of the Deep State out to get him.

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And take time and resources so that members can’t work to help their constituents. Win-win for them.

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29

Judgeships.

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Exactly, Trump is not planning to respond to any request from the House, so really they don’t need all that many lawyers to obstruct and delay and kick things over to the Supreme Court, recently packed with Trump loyalists and believers in “executive-supremacy-when-republicans-presidents-do-it”. All they need is one of these:

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31

Exactly.

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Not to mention, the shortage of lawyers will be seen as an excuse to delay responses to subpoenas and federal judges will probably let them use that excuse, notwithstanding the fact that the administration caused the problem.

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33

I think it more likely the federal judge will raise an eyebrow and ask if they would like a public defender to handle the matter for them, at which point they’ll magically find the resources.

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Besides they don’t have to keep it up for ever, just long enough for the Trumps and the Kushners to max out on corrupt deals. And the Zinkes, DeVos and Carsons of the administration to steal everything that is not nailed.

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I can’t say this often enough–it’s very tempting to look for a clever plan underneath the incompetent flailing about, but it’s more challenging and rewarding to accept that it really is incompetent flailing all the way down. You can’t believe it, right? Neither can I. A U.S. administration this pathetic. But it is.

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The White(s Only) House doesn’t need any stinking lawyers.

The planter with a “very good brain” knows “more than the generals” and lawyers, and is “very highly educated.”
His defense will likely be centered around a novel strategy, to wit, “I know words, I know the best words.”

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37

Every one of those actions requires attorneys. And they don’t have enough to handle to predicted workload; made all the worse by the continued turnover which has been a main characteristic of this WH.

What the article is pointing out is that the bottom is about to fall out on the strategy that Trumpers have been running with since he took office; namely, treating everything like a PR situation instead of a legal situation. And things like “hazy memories” aren’t going to work…not when there are people like Flynn, Manafort, and Cohen, with copious records, fully cooperating with the Feds.

IMO, a far more likely scenario is that Trump will begin lashing out at his own lawyers (bye bye Guiliani), and then of course House Democrats in increasing rage while driving his base to higher and higher levels of anger. He is fully committed to the “PR strategy”, and its end game is to basically argue “you can’t impeach me, the people voted for me, and there will be armed insurrection if you try”

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The point is, the losses will keep mounting. It won’t be easy, but it will do damage. And who cares what the deplorables “think”?

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Will it get to a point where a judge will need to state to Trump
“If you are unable to secure the services of a lawyer, the court can appoint one for you”

  • ideally while Trump is standing in the courtroom in an orange jumpsuit.
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The Electoral College does.

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