The Guardian, ‘A subversion of the justice system’: DoJ shifts into Trump’s ‘political wing’ as criminal investigations accelerate
Subhead: “President has ‘succeeded in completely politicizing’ justice department, experts say, using it to punish his enemies
Well, yes, but what they have not succeeded in doing is indicting the bloody ham sandwiches. Tim Miller of The Bulwark marshals the facts about the Justice Department’s many failures in pursuing bogus legal cases against Trump’s political adversaries:
They have also succeeded in generating many, many state bar investigations into illegal conduct by Justice Department lawyers. See, for example, lawandcrime.com, AG Pam Bondi claims ‘right’ to take over state bar investigations of her lawyers’ ethics or else, cites ‘unprecedented weaponization’ of complaints.
Thank you, Sir. May I Have Another, Sir?
Meanwhile, earlier this week, in the Mother and Father of All Legal Clusterfucks, the Justice Department told the district court in Washington, DC, that it no longer wished to appeal its shellacking in the four cases brought by Perkins Coie, Jenner& Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey. Then, the next day, the Justice Department said “Never mind,” and tried to take it all back, asking the district court for permission to withdraw its motion of the previous day to voluntarily dismiss the appeal.
The court will have to rule on this mess. As I write, it has not yet done so.
One possibility is that, before the court acts, it will haul Team Trump into court, put them under oath, and demand that they explain what the hell happened.
Finally, legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin has taken time off from private pleasures to write an op-ed in the New York Times headlined Trump Has Elite Law Firms on a Punishing Merry-Go-Round. Toobin tells a tale of winners and losers, and casts Trump as the big winner against Paul Weiss and the other eight Cowardly Lion Law Firms.
In my opinion, his tale is misleadingly incomplete. For what it’s worth—and that’s probably not very much—Paul Weiss and the other capitulators plainly thought they recognized a familiar pattern: a dispute that can be made to go away when Party A doesn’t have to give up much of anything that it actually values, while Party B gets bupkis of real value but is allowed to make uncontradicted boastful claims of a famous victory.
As it has turned out, the nine cowardly firms underestimated the severity of the ongoing hits to their reputation. And they surely did, as Toobin states, act like cowards. So, yes, they are indeed losers.
That said, I dissent from describing Trump as a winner in this episode.
Like the craven cowards they are, Team Trump tried to pull the plug on their dispute with the Courageous Four: Perkins Coie, represented by Williams & Connolly; Jenner & Block, represented by Cooley LLP; WilmerHale, represented by Paul Clement; and Susman Godfrey, acting pro se, with the support of 700 other lawyers organized as Law Firm Partners United in Support of Susman.
Then someone—in all likelihood, Orange Mussolini himself—got wind of what was happening and ordered Team Trump back into the fray.
Team Trump’s Monday filing was effectively an admission that their legal case has no merit at all. It didn’t have any merit on Monday, when the pulled the plug. It doesn’t have any merit today. And it still won’t have any merit at whatever point down the road the court of appeals, or maybe the Supreme Court, drives the final nail into the coffin.
Orange Mussolini is, once again, cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
Facing MAGA 