As Josh’s correspondent speculated, it may not have been about smart. It may be his big stupid mouth turned him into a grand jury witness such that he had to withdraw.
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It’s the stuff dreams are made of.
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These guys are clueless. There are some things you CAN do that you really should never do.
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What is it about tRump that even people who were formerly respected turn into complete incompetents the moment they go to work for him?
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The only thing I can imagine is that they are attempting to do what he wants them to do which by definition will be something incompetent or illegal of stupid or all three.
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Touché! It’s really one of my all-time favorite films.
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I hope Mueller has an excellent bodyguard team…
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I prefer to usually think of the privilege as narrow – looking at whether the communication was sought in the process of giving or soliciting advice. Otherwise, you’d need a pretty good basis for asserting privilege. It’s not hard to think of a scenario where Trump says something to or in front of Dowd that is not in a privileged context that is both contrary to Trump’s legal interest and of interest to Mueller. Thus, Dowd has to go. Josh has had some edblogs on this today.
There might well be non-privileged communications, and lord knows Trump could well have talked about the subject to others, even discussing advice he may have received on the subject and thus waiving any claim to privilege. I do think if Trump discussed with Dowd whether he could grant pardons to those Mueller is investigating, there’s a very good case to be made that those communications are a solicitation of legal advice, and Dowd’s responses would be the giving of legal advice. But if the discussions turn to plans to offer pardons to induce potential witnesses not to cooperate with Mueller, particularly if steps are taken to carry out those plans, then Trump and Dowd may well have a problem with the crime-fraud exception.
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Manafort’s accused of conspiring against the United States. A presidential pardon for that would be…let’s just say…interesting.
In the case of Flynn, he’s already made a deal to turn state’s evidence. Also…interesting.
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Would it? Attorney-client privilege goes out the window if you’re plotting a crime with your lawyer.
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That is the crime-fraud exception I discussed further on in the comment.
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There was a lot to chew on in the NYT piece if you compare the responses of the lawyers. (Apologies in advance for what will be a long post…)
Dowd and Sekulow are both on the record (at some point at least – not sure about when Dowd commented) as saying basically ‘pardons were never discussed.’ Which is weird on its face (because of course they were) but even more so when you consider attorney/client privilege. If Trump ever discussed pardons and sought advice from either Dowd or Sekulow about them, the conversation would be privileged. So, why then should they say anything about whether a conversation about pardons occurred? Why not just say ‘no comment’ or ‘those conversations are privileged’? Probably because they know everyone would assume (rightfully) that those kinds of statements would mean that they HAD talked about pardons. So, they just lie – because they evidently are more comfortable lying to the press than the alternative.
What’s even more interesting is when you compare what Dowd and Sekulow have said with what Ty Cobb said. Cobb’s statement is worded very carefully. I haven’t quite thought that through yet, but my guess is that they’re keeping Cobb out of the loop on this because he’s representing the office not the man.
Finally, look at what Manafort’s (former) lawyer and Flynn’s lawyers are saying… Nothing.
They may be taking the approach that Dowd and Sekulow weren’t willing to take (clam up and let everyone assume the likely scenario that pardons might have been offered/discussed) knowing that the damage that flows from those assumptions hurt Trump not their clients (especially where no pardons have been offered/accepted).
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I’m surprised that egg hasn’t been cracked already. From russia with love.
Then again, porn stars and bunnys are not high up on the hierarchy list around here. So they should be careful also.
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One thing I’m wondering is when we might start seeing a flood of bar complaints / investigations of the “lawyers” in the clown car that is Trump’s legal team (I would include Sessions in that clown car as well). I can’t imagine most state bars would look very kindly on dangling pardons for potential witnesses, or what appear to be a fairly large number of outright falsehoods from Trump’s legal team.
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Yes…thanks. I see it now. I was reading your comment in the context of a reply to it rather than focusing just on your comment. My bad for missing that you did clearly address that.
like zero public appearances, vanilla bland docile sheep-like bleat-tweets, with no rallies. dotard is holed up in the bunker and his staff have likely hidden his phone while keeping him sedated with big macs with fried chicken chasers.
but Vesuvius gonna do what it wants to do sooner or later; the narcissist will have its say soon enough.
ETA:
Bwahahahahahahahahaha:
https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/979080237341437952
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I’m pretty sure that’s why Down resigned.
He realized—too late to salvage his thoroughly tarnished reputation—that Trump was a lost cause and impossible to defend successfully.
That is also why Trump can’t get any big-name lawyers to represent him, coupled with Trump’s reputation for stiffing those he owes.
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If I were Flynn, Manafort, Gates, or Papadopoulas, I’d ask for witness protection.
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But did Dowd manage to stay out of trouble while he worked for Trump? Did he get out too late?