White House lawyer John Einsenberg quickly placed a transcript of President Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president in a secure vault after an alarmed Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman told him he thought Trump’s behavior during the call was “wrong,” the Washington Post reported.
The White House lawyer needs a lawyer.
Next up for impeachment hearings, Eisenberg? But, of course, he won’t be able to make it.
The amount of honor evident in witnesses so far has been pretty scant. This is a nice and clear example that there is still some honor in public service (in spite of Trump’s efforts to purge all of the decent people).
So Eisenberg is warned, by multiple witnesses, that the president was actively committing abuses of power and, at the least, campaign law violations, and his reaction is to try to bury the evidence.
Mr. Eisenberg is going to have some serious explaining to do. To Congress, to the public, to the Bar.
Notably, no attorney-client privilege exists between Trump and the White House Counsel. White House Counsel represents the office of the presidency, not the president.
The fear of telling Trump that he did something wrong terrified everyone around him. Then they tried to hide the problem as best they could from him and the world.
We’re all of Trump’s minions raised by alcoholic parents?
That’s exactly the kind of thing people tend to do when they have something to hide.
This is practically a caricature of a coverup.
Spot on analysis. You nailed the behavior.
Yup, that’s why White House Counsel John Dean’s testimony against President Nixon was so damning.
@austin_dave and @ghost
Both of you are spot on. This man is in a weaker position than he has ever been in…but he himself preys on the weak
Years ago, I had a long conversation with a woman who was married to an abusive husband who she kept at bay because of her relative fearlessness.
But one day (she may have been tired), she showed fear and, she said to me, she knew then that she would have to leave (which she did).
Trump attracts those who are fearful and pliable from the beginning (like Lindsey Graham).
Thank goodness for non-existent and non-applicable attorney client privilege and the superseding precedent of ‘Constitutional immunity” because without it John Einsenberg esq. would appear to be in a world of jeopardy.
This isn’t exactly news but it gives a much clearer picture that Eisenberg intended to obstruct justice when the loaded the transcript in the secret server.
He can’t make a process or protocol argument. No jury would every buy it. Vindman told him that he thought what Trump did was wrong or illegal, as did others. His immediate instinct was to hide the transcript. That’s consciousness of guilt. He was hiding it not because it had national security sensitive information. He hid it to avoid legal scrutiny.
I doubt Eisenberg is going to testify, but it seems clear that he is John Dean 2.0 (along with Cipollone).
Even if he put it on the server before Eisenberg told him that the behavior was wrong, he clearly made the decision to keep it secreted.
John Dean was able to repair his reputation after serving time. I wonder if Eisenberg will do the right thing (although now after the fact) and be able to do the same?
Similarly, that’s how Putin attracted Trump.
A footnote needs to be added to Pelosi’s charge that “All roads lead to Putin”. Like Bill Barr, Alexander Acosta, Alex Azar, John Bolton, Robert Khuzami,Jeff Rosen,and Pat Cippole, Einsenberg is Affiliated with the law firm Kirkland-Ellis. This place appears to be the real locus of power, controling whats left of the Trump Administration.
Is Eisenberg another Federalist Society fetishist?
There was a report I read yesterday that the White House didn’t want Vindman -a Ukraine specialist -debriefing Trump after Zelensky’s election because it would be “too confusing” for him. Instead, they let Nunes’s boy, Kash Patel, do it. For some reason, Trump thought he was the Ukraine specialist.
Really absurd stuff. And at the highest levels of our government.