Columns, Criminal law, Lawyering

Smith’s Sirens: Can Trump Be Convicted for the Lure of Bad Lawyering?

Below is my column in The Messenger on the emerging controversy in the Trump prosecutions over the testimony of former counsel to the former president. Various lawyers have now accepted plea bargains. However, Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Fulton County District Attorney appear to be arguing that, while Trump was assured of these claims by counsel, he should never have listened to them. It is a type of “Siren’s Call” theory of criminality.

Here is the column:

In Homer’s “Odyssey,” Odysseus faces one of his most fearsome threats — the three Sirens, beautiful sea creatures who lure sailors to their ruin with their seductive songs.

Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis have offered a modern version of the Sirens in the lure of bad lawyering. Three lawyers have recently pleaded guilty in Georgia, and they may join other former counsel in testifying against their former client.

What is novel is the criminal “Siren’s call” theory of these cases. Former President Donald Trump is being prosecuted for following the advice of his counsel, who are now effectively saying that he should not have believed what they were telling him.

This is not to say that Trump is an unwitting victim of bad legal advice. He steadfastly ignored the overwhelming advice of lawyers in the White House and many of us in the media. He pushed for counsel who would support these claims. Indeed, some of the lawyers sound like they were lured by the Siren call of Trump, led astray from their better legal judgment.

Kenneth Chesebro’s attorney, Scott Grubman, says that “Mr. Chesebro never believed in ‘the Big Lie’” and believes that Biden won the election.

Likewise, Sidney Powell  has argued that “no reasonable person would conclude that my statements were truly statements of fact” as opposed to opinions.

Jenna Ellis recently stated “Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he’s never done anything wrong.”

However, the question is whether a client should be subject to criminal prosecution in following such advice. These lawyers were not just confident but enthusiastic after the election in pursuing the claims they now repudiate. Moreover, their plea agreements had a number of notable omissions. First, none pleaded guilty to a conspiracy with Trump or to racketeering. Second, none will face jail time, and the prosecution has agreed that they did not commit crimes of moral turpitude. All three could keep their licenses.

It is also not clear that these attorneys would implicate Trump if called. They could prove more damaging to other defendants such as Rudy Giuliani, or they could still prove harmful to the prosecution’s overall theory. They secured no jail deals, but only agreed to testify truthfully. Some, like Ellis, may now have animus but lack evidence against Trump in establishing a conspiracy or racketeering claim.

Both the federal and state prosecutions are premised on the claim that Trump never believed what he was saying about a stolen election. If Trump actually did believe he had viable claims in the courts or Congress, the prosecutions would collapse. Even Smith admits that Trump’s early election claims were protected political speech, but at some point became a criminal conspiracy when Trump had to know that his claims were baseless.

The most dangerous aspect to the federal indictment is that Smith leaves the line entirely undefined for future cases. If Trump crossed the Rubicon into criminal conduct in his election claims, Smith should be able to point to the river on the map. Instead, Smith offers no limiting principle on when election claims move from the sensational to the criminal.

That is particularly concerning, since many election claims in the courts or Congress have been unfounded. For example, Marc Elias, who served as general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and played a key role in its secret funding of the infamous Steele dossier, challenged past elections on such grounds. After the 2020 election, he challenged a New York election by claiming that voting machines had flipped the results in favor of the Republicans through mistabulations.

Likewise, leading Democrats such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to block certification of Donald Trump’s 2106 election victory despite lacking any evidence of fraud or legal or factual basis. None of these challenges were raised as potential crimes or even considered unethical.

Smith and Willis are seeking to use Trump’s own counsel to prove that he eventually knew that the election claims were bogus. This remains uncharted territory. Presidents often make unconstitutional claims.

Indeed, President Joe Biden admitted that, in seeking to reinstate the flagrantly unconstitutional national eviction moratorium, his White House counsel and every other lawyer told him that it violated the Constitution. He admitted that he was able to find only one lawyer — Harvard Professor Larry Tribe — who told him that he could do it. He went ahead, and it was found unconstitutional. It did not matter that Tribe has often been proven wrong on such claims or that Biden appeared to have doubts himself. It was enough that he thought it might have a slight chance of success to, according to Biden, get some relief before any injunction.

Many of us disagreed with Trump’s election claims and the theories put forward by this legal team. Indeed, I criticized Trump’s Jan. 6 speech as he was still giving it. Moreover, Trump clearly evinced impatience and even anger with those (like Attorney General Bill Barr) who dismissed the claims. Finally, there is no question that clients often look for lawyers who will tell them what they want to hear. However, it is also clear that Trump found such lawyers.

While Sam Bankman-Fried insisted that he relied on the advice of counsel for his decisions as head of FTX, he could not recall any specific instances of such advice. That is not a problem for Trump, since his counsel was speaking in public on an almost daily basis as to the legal and factual foundations for his claims. They would have to now argue that, despite all the assurances they gave, Trump would have been a fool to believe them.

Yet, accounts from inside the Oval Office show that Trump’s lawyers are going head to head with other lawyers in making the case that their theories could prevail in court. It appears that they were saying privately exactly what they were saying publicly.

The question is how far this Siren’s theory of criminality will go. It is not uncommon for campaigns to seek novel or low-likelihood claims in court. Moreover, since when are clients criminally culpable for following the advice of a team of lawyers?

To resist the Sirens, Odysseus forced his crew to lash him to the mast and fill their own ears with wax, because the “high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him.” Short of lashing a president to his chair in the Oval Office, the question is when the lure of lawyers can lead to actual prison time. For as Homer warned, “those creatures…spellbind any man alive.”

Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School.

 

257 thoughts on “Smith’s Sirens: Can Trump Be Convicted for the Lure of Bad Lawyering?”

  2. Rightwing Media Created Trump, And The Need To Maintain Him

    Mr. Rauch’s book “The Constitution of Knowledge” examined the collapse of shared standards of truth. He suggested that the incentive structure on the right has played an indispensable role in its epistemic crisis. Right-wing media discovered that spreading lies, inflaming resentments and stoking nihilism were extremely profitable because there was an enormous audience for it. Republican politicians similarly found they could energize their base by doing the same. Initially, the media and politicians cynically exploited these tactics; soon they became dependent on them. “They got high on their own supply and couldn’t stop using without infuriating the base,” as Mr. Rauch put it. There was nothing they would not defend, no exit ramp they would take.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/opinion/trump-allan-bloom-republicans.html

    ……………………………………….

    Long before Trump became the Republican nominee, rightwing media kept constantly demonizing government and so-called ‘coastal elites’. These narratives, over time, created demand for a wrecking ball of a president who would demolish our institutions.

    And when that president failed to get reelected, his followers felt an existential crisis existed where everything they believed in was threatened. Therefore any means was justified to keep that president in power. Consequently, the election results had to be dismissed by ‘well-intentioned lies’.

      1. REGARDING ABOVE:

        This post was by Estovir the closeted puppet master of these threads.

        Estovir is also Thinkthrough, James, Upstate Farmer, Iowa 2, Ralph Chappell, Ralph DeMimus, J. Feldman, Guy Ventner, N.N., dogsnowden, Old Man From Kansas and countless other names.

        Estovir imagines everyone is gay because that’s where his head is at.

      2. That’s worth a transcript:

        Has anyone told the gays for Palestine that Hamas bans homosexual activity and Israel is the most respectful of gay rights of any society in the Middle East? I guess not, because they want to bulldoze the Jewish state out of existence and put in its place an authority that would happily oppress them. Behold the stupidity.

      3. REGARDING ABOVE:

        If someone’s posting stupid, gay-themed junk, you can be sure it’s Estovir.

        Estovir is the creepy nerd who writes most of the comments here on any given day.

        Estovir is also Edward Mahl, Thinkthrough, James, Upstate Farmer, Old Man From Kansas, Iowa 2, Ralph DeMimus, Ralph Chappell, Guy Ventner and many, many more.

        Estovir is obsessed with gays, because that’s where his head is at.

        3. I’m offended that you chose Estovir over me. What does he have that I don’t?

            1. Nashville Mayor Furious Over Leak of Transgender Shooter’s Manifesto, Demands Investigation

              On a page dated Feb. 3, 2023, Hale wrote: “Wanna kill all you little crackers!!! Bunch of little f*gg*ts w/ your white privlages [sic].”

              That Trans chic sure was a homophobe. What is it with the Trans psychos little f*gg*ts w/ your white privlages speech?

            1. I was called “Little Ricky” in college because students and faculty in a Jesuit college in the Deep South, all lily white, told me I spoke funny. They reminded me daily. My Academic Dean, an Irishman, called me “Super Spic” in front of a group of students. Not batting an eye, I called him “Super Mick” and everyone gasped including the Dean. He and I became friends thereon. When I graduated from college, with my non-English speaking family attending, Super Mick embraced me and told my parents that I had been an inspiration to him.

              Discrimination and prejudicial behavior can either cause someone to collapse or push them to do better than their accusers. Today, I speak English better than Americans thanks in part to Super Mick and those students who mocked me.

    2. Democrats invented and propagated the greatest political hoax of all time: Trump-Putin collusion. Naturally, you want to blame Republicans for the decline in the respect for truth.

    3. What you call “right wing media” does not exist in a vacuum.

      Just like the left wing nut MSM the “right wing media” exists to fill a vacuum – because there are over 100m people in the US who do not share your views.

      What you call right wing media is a reflection fo the values of the people who it serves – not the other way arround – just as the left wing nut media is a reflection of those it serves.

      And like McDonalds each strives to make a profit by giving its consumers what THEY want.

      Trump is not a creation of the right wing media. He is a reflection of what over 100m people in this country want.

      I would further note that as republicans go – Trump is mostly pretty centrist. He is multiply divorced, not especially religious.
      He is closer to the center on most cultural issues than most republicans.

  3. Trump’s lawyers were at the White House Counsel. He ignored them and decided to follow these nuts. That is on him 100%.

    1. This is a bizare argument – the WH counsel advises the president as president. They have absolutely no role in advising the Trump as a presidential candidate and are barred by law from doing do.

      As to “these nuts” – one of those is Rudy Guilliani – who has an incredible track record as a US Attorney (as BTW did several other Trump lawyers). Before becoming NYC’s mayor. I would fruther Note that Guilliani was one of the leads in the Biden Corruption investigation.
      Where Guilliani has been PROVEN correct.

      The Biden’s ARE cporrupt. They WERE engaged in bribery influence pedalling and public corruption.

      So your Argument is that Guliani is “nuts” because he has a long long long track record of being RIGHT – through to today.

      But your OPINION on ONE issue is at odds with his – so Gulliani is “nuts” ?

      Sorry – wise people will take Gulliani over you and your ilk all the time.

      1. Trump is claiming that his actions were done as his duties as president. Thus the White House Counsel office would have been the correct lawyers to use.

  4. It’s ironic that using the personal “Trump Brand” to inflate the value of his real estate holdings is an indictable offense, but using the personal “Biden Brand” to sell political influence to foreign, often hostile, actors to the United States is a non-issue. Now which “Brand” had the potential to do serious harm to our national security?

    1. If anybody should be charged with felonies and giving an account for his evil deeds as US President is Barack Obama. Im not an attorney so I lack the knowledge and clearly the finesse to sugar coat his despicable, reprehensible behaviors, foreign and domestic. Nothing short of leg irons and placing him in pillory would be a good start. Trump is a clown. Obama is the mastermind of the current woes in America and in Israel.

      Obama, Hamas and ‘Complicity’
      The former president seeks to shift the blame for the attack on Israel. He ought to look in the mirror.

      Mr. Obama sent Iran $1.7 billion in cash, released some $100 billion in frozen assets and unshackled Iranian industry. His plan to extricate the U.S. from the Middle East was suitably complex: find a rapprochement with Iran that would empower it to stabilize the region for us. Predictably, Tehran used the money to build up each front—Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq and Yemen—in today’s war on Israel.

      The rest of Mr. Obama’s policy paved the way. In August 2012, he drew a “red line.” The U.S. would respond militarily if Syria used chemical weapons. When it did a year later, Mr. Obama blinked and then let Russia bail him out by pretending to remove all the chemical weapons. Russia never left Syria, and propping up Bashar al-Assad solidified its alliance with Iran. The Journal reports that Russia plans to give Hezbollah better air defenses in Lebanon, and Syria is a key Hezbollah staging ground and transit point for Iranian weapons.

      Israel had an early chance to destroy Hamas in the 2008-09 Gaza war, but the incoming Obama administration signaled its displeasure. Israel stopped short, declaring a unilateral cease-fire. That only prepared the next war, in 2014, but overthrowing Hamas wasn’t even on the table with Mr. Obama in the White House.

      The Obama strategy of pressuring Israel and indulging the Palestinians made no progress toward peace. A 2009-10 Israeli settlement freeze was shrugged off. John Kerry shuttled around, banging his head against the wall called the “peace process.” Mr. Obama’s parting shiv—enabling a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned the Jewish state and undermined its claim to Jerusalem—did nothing for Palestinians but indulge the fantasy that U.S. pressure on Israel will obviate the need for them to compromise.

      If everyone is responsible for this war, as Mr. Obama says, then Hamas becomes only one guilty party among many, and Oct. 7 a mere link in a long causal chain. Blame shifts to Israel. As the U.N. secretary-general put it, “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.” But if anyone has been complicit in enabling Hamas’s atrocities, Barack Obama has.

      Wall Street Journal

      1. Estovir, Obama has been very busy enabling hostilities against the survival of Israel and the United States.

      3. You somehow attempted to summarize Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East without once mentioning ISIS.

        Think about that for a second, and then ask yourself whether the picture you’ve painted could, in any way, be a reasonable description of foreign policy from 2009-2017 without even a brief mention of the most acute issue in that region from 2013 – 2017.

        The fact that you’ve likely forgotten about ISIS is proof that Obama’s efforts to neutralize it, in partnership with others in the Combined Joint Task Force, were successful.

        2. Except that was not the case.
          ISIS was neutralized – but not under Obama.

          The mideast was MORE violent under Obama – not less.

          Prior to Obama – ISIS was an inconsequential faction within Al Queda.
          During Obama, they became a force on the ground capable of setting up a country in significant parts of syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon.

          Obrama’s foreign policy was disasterous – possibly as bad as Bush’s.
          Certainly not even close to Trump’s.

          And ISIS is an example of Obama’s failure.

      4. ” Trump is a clown.”

        Based on performance, I will take the clown. If one voted for someone other than Trump either time, one should be proud to have Biden as their President or recognize their mistake. Obama’s first term let us know the direction the Democrats were drifting toward. How many more times does that need to hit one on the head?

  5. I feel that the Marxists looked at Trump like the second coming and knew they had encountered a man who could not be bought or scared off. The only path for them was satanic, to ruin him with falsehoods for years and try to get him removed with false, phony impeachments which did not work. So as far as I am concerned the election was stolen from him by this means and thus, he is correct in his assertions. The state I reside in is currently trying to prevent voters from voting for him by removing him from our ballot. If that happens, I will reside in a new state that believes in our founding principles by election time.

  6. In other news: remember Professor Turley’s piece on the Stanford Law School shout-down of the federal appellate judge? So not Stanford is tapping the leader of the student group who shouted the judge down to search for a new dean. Makes sense: the judge was a conservative, so in the law school’s thinking the censorship was a good thing. Can’t allow any contrary views on campus, that would be dangerous, and this is an American university after all where conformity of thought is absolutely required. How else will we brainwash the young to be social justice warriors?

    https://freebeacon.com/campus/stanford-taps-organizer-of-infamous-protest-to-help-law-school-find-new-dean/

  7. “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

    – Declaration of Independence, 1776

  8. Kunstler’s latest piece is about Joe Biden’s four wars that are bringing down America and paving the way to Chinese global hegemony. The most relevant is war #3, about which he writes:

    Bringing us to War No. 3: The US Government’s war against its own citizens. This has been going on since Mr. Trump stepped onto the scene, and has included a semi-successful war against Mr. Trump personally – except that not only has it failed to put him out of business as a politician, it has substantiated many of the claims he made about corrupt and perfidious government that resulted in his election in 2016. All of that has only enhanced his polling numbers. And the lawless, bad faith court cases lodged against him have demonstrated the US government’s grievous fall into willful malfeasance that has the DOJ arresting and unfairly persecuting hundreds of innocent Americans that support Mr. Trump.

    A big part of the government’s war against US citizens has been the bizarre Covid-19 episode and the long-running effort by public officials to deceive the population about it, including lockdowns and destruction of small businesses, the dishonest suppression of viable treatments, gross censorship about the harms of the mRNA vaccines, and trickery around the origins of the vaccines in the back rooms of our Department of Defense.

    Another front of this war is the wide-open Mexican border, a lawless state of affairs created as deliberate policy by our cabinet secretaries, and done at a time when there is tremendous animus against the US from many other nations who send thousands of sketchy young men into our country with no attempt by our border officials to determine who they are.

    It looks like “Joe Biden’s” hash will be settled shortly when the House, reorganized under a young and vital new speaker, reveals the Biden family’s bank records and begins the process of impeaching the president for bribery. “Joe Biden’s” party pretends that this is not happening and appears to have no plan to deal with consequences. For the moment, they still stupidly tout him as their candidate for the 2024 election, another arrant falsehood you can add to the thousand-and one affronts against the public that this party has tried to put over. Many Americans suspect there will not be a 2024 election, specifically that whoever is president in the coming year will invoke yet another national emergency order to postpone it on spurious grounds. Many are also far from persuaded that the 2020 election that installed “Joe Biden” was honest and legitimate.

    1. Old Man: it was TRUMP who shut down businessess, schools, bars, restaurants, etc. NOT Biden. The “origin” of COVID has yet to be established, and Trump’s fake cures killed people unnecessarily. It was Biden who brought America back from the disaster caused by Trump’s incompetence, and vaccines are the biggest reason why. It is absolutely immmoral to falsely frighten people about the safety and mechanism of mRNA vaccines. They do not alter our genetics. Republicans and alt-right media take advantage of the ignorance of lots of gullible people over this, and it’s wrong. Our Mexican border is not open, but until or unless Republicans agree to do something about the legal right to seek asylum–people can come here and apply. It’s the law. There is no evidence that JOE Biden was ever bribed. The House Committee has turned up nothing implicating Joe Biden. The party that is “pretending” is Republicans–pretending JOE Biden is a crook because they KNOW Trump is a crook. And, your “young and vital” speaker is an election denier. In the opinion of many, because of his violation of his oath to the Constitution, he should be disqualified from even being in Congress.

      1. Gigi, what you write is nonsense.

        You claimed that Trump lost all the court cases. Now that the court cases were provided in list form you can see how wrong you were.

        Same with the BS you provide in this latest post.

        1. WHAT list of court cases where Trump successfully challenged his 2020 election loss? I haven’t found one.

      2. “[I]t was TRUMP who shut down businessess [sic], schools, bars, restaurants, etc.”

        You’re lying.

        State and local politicians and bureaucrats shut down businesses.

        If you’re going to lie, don’t make it so obvious.

        1. AND, WHO was POTUS when there were shutdowns? Hint: it wasn’t Biden. Remember Trump promised we’d be back in church for Easter, or that “it’s just one person coming from China”, and 15 cases will soon be 0 cases”? Remember those lies? From Wikipedia: “On March 31, 2020, the CDC projected that eventually 100,000–240,000 Americans would die of coronavirus. The lower end of the estimate was reached within two months after the CDC made its projection, and the upper end was surpassed in November 2020.” Biden didn’t take office until January 20, 2021. Blaming Biden for the shut downs is dishonest.

    1. It is the most serious threat. But the Left will sacrifice literally every pillar of society just to “get Trump.” In doing so, they even sacrifice themselves – which they’re fine with so long as Trump is harmed. They are, in a word, jihadists.

    2. A client now has to worry that his own lawyer will turn on him?

      JMRJ, this exchange from A Man For All Seasons might as well have been written for where we are today.

      “William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

      Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

      William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”

      Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”

    3. There is no privilege when a lawyer assists his client in the commission of a crime. Per the Shouse Law Group’s website: “The lawyer-client privilege does not protect every communication between you and your attorney. There are two major exceptions to the privilege.

      The attorney-client privilege does not apply when you seek the lawyer’s assistance in carrying out or planning a crime or a fraud.
      There is no lawyer-client privilege if the lawyer reasonably believes that disclosure of confidential attorney-client communication is necessary to prevent death or substantial bodily harm. ” This is a fair statement of the law.

      1. Gigi, this is both correct and completely beside the point. This is not about the evidentiary privilege. It’s far deeper and more disturbing than that. It’s about the lawyer’s duty of loyalty to the client, a related but distinct obligation. I’ve had prosecutors make your argument. They’re wrong. So are you.

        1. No, I’m not wrong, which is why Powell, Giuliani and Ellis were prosecuted. Getting hired by a client does not constitute license to lie to the public or to a court because your client isn’t happy about losing an election. Trump’s lawyers not only filed frivolous lawsuits, they held press conferences and asserted what they claimed were facts about fraud, knowing they had no evidence. The lawyer has a superceding and higher duty to the rule of law and Constitution. A lawyer cannot assist their client in carrying out criminal behavior, and cannot lie to a tribunal by claiming nonexistent evidence. Review Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which most, if not all, states have adopted. Sub-part (B), entitled “Representations to the Court: By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion or other paper–whether by signing, fliling, submitting, or later advocating it–an attorney or unrepresented party certified that to the best of the persons’ knowledge, information, and belief, formed after inqiry reasonable under the circumstances: ….(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery”.

          The lies about nonexistent fraud never had ANY evidentiary support. From Berkeley Law-on the duty of loyalty to a client, citing the Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers:

          “Within the bounds of the law, the duty of loyalty requires the lawyer to put the client’s
          interests ahead of the lawyer’s own interests and to do nothing to harm the client. The duty of
          care requires the lawyer to act reasonably and live up to the standard of care of a reasonable
          lawyer doing similar work in similar circumstances. The duty of confidentiality requires the
          lawyer not to use client confidences for the lawyer’s benefit, unless the information has become
          generally known, and not to disclose client information unless required by law to do so.”
          A. The Duty of Loyalty
          RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW GOVERNING LAWYERS
          (“RESTATEMENT”) §16(3)

          Notice the qualifier: WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF THE LAW…”.

          Trump went on “Stop the Steal” tours, drumming up support for the insurrection he was planning by lying about losing due to cheating–knowing there was no evidence to support what he was claiming. He got Giuliani, Powell and Ellis to file lawsuits with various courts claiming the same lies, and seeking injunctions to prevent Biden from taking office. Every time the attorneys were asked what evidence they had to prove fraud, they had to admit they didn’t have any evidence. Within the bounds of the law, they could NOT have lied to the Court and claimed there was evidence when they knew they didn’t have any.

          This case is very serious because American democracy cannot stand if every time someone with a big ego loses an election, they decide to lie about cheating without any evidence, and they get lawyers to try to stop the election winner from taking office.

  10. Is it really true that it is a crime for a party to a lawsuit to take a position that he/she “knows” to be untrue? If so, should not every criminal defendant who pleads innocent but who is later convicted of the crime also be convicted about lying about his/her innocence? That person must have “known” that they were guilty.

    1. edwardmahl: pleading “not guilty” is NOT lying. There is no comparison between Trump’s baseless Big Lie and someone pleading “not guilty’.

      1. But Gigi, if someone “knows” he is guilty, why should we let him “say” he is not? Consider how much money he is wasting by denying reality.

        1. A guilty person has a legal right to plead not guilty. The prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

      2. Pleading guilty when one is guilty is very much lying. But being the biggest LIAR around, its not surprising that Gigi would make that statement.

    2. Edward – in a criminal plea, “not guilty” just means “prove it.”

      2. So, it is a verbal formula, not a literal statement. The law allows the Defendant to force the State to show what they. have. Why cannot an election candidate also be able to require a state government to show that the election process was valid by saying “I wuz robbed”?

        1. No, you still aren’t getting it, Edward. A pleading is not a “verbal formula.” Pleadings have to do with the defendant’s assessment of the evidence in support of or against the charges. A defendant can even plead guilty “pursuant to Alford,” which means that the record strongly supports the defendant’s guilt but the defendant concludes that it is still in his/her interest to enter a guilty plea.

          The key here is the evidence must relate to the CHARGES. With respect to Trump, there is no requirement that the state (or the feds) must prove Trump lost because the charges do not require such evidence. Whether Trump won Georgia or not is irrelevant to whether Trump orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to falsify election certificates and gain unlawful access to voting machines in Coffee County, among many others.

          To put it in layman’s terms – the government wouldn’t have to prove you murdered the store clerk if you are charged with robbery. They would only have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you met the requisite elements of the charge: (1) intent to commit theft; (2) take property from another; (3) by use of force, or intimidation, or sudden snatching (to use Georgia’s statute as an example).

          Does that make sense to you?

        2. Edward,

          So, it is a verbal formula, not a literal statement.

          Yes, that’s correct. There are two paths: admit guilt, or force the state to prove its case. You have an absolute constitutional right to force the state to prove its case.

          If you force the state to prove its case – regardless of whether you believe you’re innocent or guilty – it doesn’t meaning you’re claiming you’re innocent, just that you refuse to go to jail without the state having proved you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

  11. “I’M RUNNING FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL BECAUSE I WILL…CHALLENGE THIS ILLEGITIMATE PRESIDENT”
    _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    “Give me the man and I will give you the case against him.”

    – Lavrentiy Beria, Head of Soviet Secret Police
    _________________________________________________

    Letitia James must be removed and prosecuted for abuse of power, usurpation of power, malicious prosecution et al.

    Letitia James has no concept of equitable, objective and impartial justice and adjudication.
    _________________________________________________________________________________________________

    “Letitia James wants to be the attorney general who helps take down Donald Trump.”

    “America is in uncharted territory. We are angrier and more deeply divided than we’ve ever been at any point in our history since the Civil War. And at the eye of the storm is Donald Trump, ripping families apart, threatening women’s most basic rights,” she stated. “I’m running for attorney general because I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president when our fundamental rights are at stake.”

    James says we need to reform our criminal justice system, and that we should not criminalize mental illness or poverty. She also believes Democrats need to stand for freedom and the Constitution, “at a time when Congress, particularly Republicans, do not have a backbone,” against Trump.

    “I believe that this president is incompetent. I believe that this president is ill-equipped to serve in the highest office of this land. And I believe that he is an embarrassment to all we stand for,” she said. “He should be charged with obstructing justice. I believe that the president of these United States can be indicted for criminal offenses and we would join with law enforcement and other attorneys general across the nation in removing this president from office.”

    – Voxmedia

    1. “I believe that this president is incompetent. I believe that this president is ill-equipped to serve in the highest office of this land. And I believe that he is an embarrassment to all we stand for,” she said.

      Is Le’titty James talking about Biden? Cuz she sure ain’t describing Trump.

  12. Have we reached peak clown world? This sounds like the Babylon Bee, but it’s a real headline:

    Author comes out as transgender man after his wife came out as trans woman – and pair, who have a trans daughter, now live in a four-way open relationship with their trans lovers

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12694447/Author-comes-transgender-man-wife-came-trans-woman-pair-trans-daughter-live-four-way-relationship-trans-lovers.html

    1. OldManFromKS,
      And some people call this progress.
      Looks more like crazy world.

      1. Progressives call it progress. That’s why in today’s world “progressive” means psychotic.

    2. “If they don’t stand for something, they will fall for anything.”

      – Dr. Gordon A. Eadie
      ________________________

      “We are trying to show him not only what we are fighting against, but what we are fighting for. So many of these boys have only a very hazy idea of the real issues of the war. About all they see is “going back to the good old days.” This is a dangerous state. If they don’t stand for something, they will fall for anything. They need to realize that we are fighting two wars—the war of arms and the war of ideas—that other war of which the war of arms is one phase.”

      – “Mental Hygiene,” Dr. Gordon A. Eadie, 1945

      1. The American Founders did not let unassimilable, diverse and oppositional adversaries immigrate.

        The American Founders did not let dependents, parasites and “persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others” vote.

        Immigration law and vote criteria of the Founders were severely restrictive.

        A rational nation directs and controls immigration, and limits and restricts voting.

        Democracy has been of the republican restricted-vote variety since inception in Greece, perpetuation in Rome and maturation in the United States of America, 1789.

    3. What are the sleeping arrangements on any given night, or might it be daytime? Now that would make for a good SNL or the Babylon Bee skit. I am sure they would approach it from different angles, both the Bee, SNL and the participants.

  13. “Conservative lawyers to launch Society for Rule of Law to counter MAGA movement
    “A group of preeminent conservative lawyers who opposed former president Donald Trump’s efforts to manipulate the legal system are launching a new, long-term project aimed at fostering respect for the US constitution and the rule of law in the legal profession. …
    “‘We believe that American democracy and the rule of law are in grave peril today. And that the legal profession … is uniquely positioned and uniquely obligated to stand up and support and defend the Constitution and the rule of law today. And the profession has not done that over the past seven years,’ [Judge Luttig, a member] said. …”
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/conservative-lawyers-to-launch-society-for-rule-of-law-to-counter-maga-movement/ar-AA1jtfyk

    1. I guess to these “conservative” lawyers the “rule of law” means the corruption of the justice system, Americans in poverty, rampant crime in our cities, lawlessness at the border, and drug and human-trafficking cartels in control. Darn MAGA instead gave us:

      (1) energy independence, (2) energy exporting, (3) affordable gas and groceries, (4) low inflation, (5) historically low unemployment especially for minorities, (6) highest real wages in half a century, (7) high property values, (8) high stock market, (9) violent crime under control, (10) border under control, Title 42 and remain-in-Mexico enforced, thus reducing human sex trafficking and deadly fentanyl infiltration into U.S. communities, as well as drowning and heat deaths of the migrants themselves (mostly children), (11) no defunding of police, (12) no war in Europe, or any new wars, (13) criminal justice reform, (14) trade deals benefiting America, (15) reduction of regulatory burden on small businesses, (16) no being beholden to globalist elites (e.g., Davos crowd) who despise free markets and America’s economic system, (17) no political weaponization of the Justice Department or FBI, (18) no labeling of concerned parents as domestic terrorists, (19) no wokeness in the military, (20) no catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal weakening America’s position in the world, (21) China and Russia don’t dare act aggressively, (22) no being in thrall to the green cultism and waging war on our best energy sources thereby depressing civilization into a state of poverty (23) no slandering half of the American electorate as alleged fascists (odd that fascist now means someone who wants to *reduce* size and power of the central government and to *oppose* state-corporate joint action to suppress dissent — the exact opposite of what fascism previously meant), (24) no double-standard whereby illegal aliens can come in permanently while not vaxed, but tennis stars can’t come in temporarily if not vaxed, (25) and on and on . . .

      1. “I guess to these “conservative” lawyers the “rule of law” means the corruption of the justice system …”

        No, and there’s no reason to think that based on what was said. Surely you can disagree with them without pretending that they believe something they don’t believe. That’s counterproductive on your part.

        A.N.D.

        1. A.N.D. – God love you , I never dreamed it was possible that I would one day have my own personal criticizer and yet here I am, proudly showing off that I have one. Thank you, I have “leveled up,” as the youngsters say.

          1. Remember when you told me to call you out if I saw you focusing on something peripheral and ignoring the main point. Here you are.

  14. Trump’s lies are ever more brazen. Now he’s claiming “We won 50 states. Every state.”

    2. Tune in! It’s gonna be lit 🔥🔥🔥
      Save America Trump Rally in Hialeah, Florida
      When: Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023
      Time: 7:00 pm ET
      Livestreams online

  15. What was the reason they indicted Trump’s attorneys? And how can they offer a plea deal for them to testify “honestly” about their former client without violating their attorney-client relationship?

    1. If you want to know the reason for the indictments, simply read the indictments. And no one has suggested that they violate attorney-client privilege. However, IF Trump chooses to make an advice-of-counsel defense, THEN he is choosing to waive attorney-client privilege for any attorney-client communications related to that defense. That’s up to Trump.

      1. They indicted Trump for political reasons and because they can.

        Democrats will destroy the rule of law every chance they get.

        If one wants law and order, peace, and a good life, no matter how you feel, vote against the Democrats. When you push the lever, remember voting for Democrats might mean voting for WW3. Taiwan is on the chopping block due to Biden and Democrats who look for power rather than for the people.

        1. They indicted Trump for political reasons and because they can.

          SM, of course it’s political and the reason couldn’t be more clear; As long as Trump has political life, he is an existential threat to their entire regime.

  16. The communists are gonna communist!
    ___________________________________________

    “MOSCOW SHOW TRIALS”

    The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against “Trotskyists” and members of “Right Opposition” of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At the time the three Moscow trials were given extravagant titles:

    1. The “Case of the Trotskyite–Zinovievite Terrorist Center” (or Zinoviev–Kamenev Trial, also known as the ‘Trial of the Sixteen’, August 1936);
    2. The “Case of the Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center” (or Pyatakov–Radek Trial, also known as the ‘Trial of the Seventeen’, January 1937); and
    3. The “Case of the Anti-Soviet ‘Bloc of Rightists and Trotskyites'” (or the Bukharin–Rykov Trial, also known as the ‘Trial of the Twenty-One’, March 1938).

    – Wikipedia

  17. @Turley,

    First, as a lawyer… tell me you’ve never seen a client ‘lawyer shop’.
    Just like a patient who goes out and shops for a doctor who would be willing to write prescriptions for the patient, there are also lawyers who will gladly support their delusional clients and take their case. ( I know first hand that this happens and the lawsuit dragged on for years. Which we won.)

    That said, if Trump relied on defective counsel, then he would lack the guilty mind needed.

    Now for the larger issue.

    While we’re well past the 2020 election… there were enough abnormalities that even back then it would be prudent to question the outcome. The reason you have the ‘big lie’ is that it was verboten to question the outcome.

    Actually, if you want to make an argument… it isn’t that difficult to steal a close election.
    I know how it can be done if you’re able to find enough people willing to take part in it and have enough money to finance it. 😉

    1. “it was verboten to question the outcome. ”

      Nonsense. It was fine to question the outcome. But if you want to ACT on your belief, you have to do so within the confines of the law. Trump has been indicted for acting outside the confines of the law.

      1. you have to do so within the confines of the law

        Nonsense. When Hillary and the deep state attacked Trump for five years outside the confines of the law, they were immune from prosecution.

          1. She participated in a conspiracy to deprive him of his civil rights under 18 USC 241.

            1. What constitutional right(s) are you alleging she attempted to deprive him of?

    2. Doctor shopping and lawyer shopping is reasonably common, though not the primary way one finds a professional.

      Many years ago, I shopped for an accountant. I felt the law was unclear, and I refused to pay taxes on a specific type of claim. I found the correct accountant, and a case before the court was decided in favor of my claim. I saved taxes. Those that went with the flow paid dearly when it wasn’t necessary.

      Smart members of HMOs, when they found they weren’t getting the treatments they sought, went doctor shopping even though it cost extra money. Some of them later sued the HMO and won. It was those outliers that caused some of the HMOs and the laws to change.

      I have had several important cases where I hired a lawyer and fired them. Some I won without the use of an attorney.

      No one should trust every professional to always do the right thing.

  18. OT,
    These Asian American Candidates Want to Make America Great Again
    “Politicians from a voting bloc that historically leans blue say they want to ‘expand the boundaries of the MAGA agenda.’”
    https://www.thefp.com/p/asian-american-political-candidates-go-maga

    The Asian community gets it.
    Read a few articles about the Black community, and they get it too.
    So does the Hispanic community.
    Recent polls show all three of those communities are ditching the Democrat party and going to vote Republican. And some have said 2024, they are just going to stay at home.
    So, when someone uses the term MAGAtards, they are not just talking about Southern whites, but Asians, Blacks and Hispanics.

    1. No worries- it will all be taken care of on election night in November 2024 when the toilets begin backing up and the semis with the “overlooked votes” begin to roll.

  19. “Can Trump Be Convicted for the Lure of Bad Lawyering?”

    An essay by a law professor who does bad lawyering for Trump in exchange for appearances on Fox and in Congress.

  20. Jonathan: You seem to always respond to DJT’s “Siren Call” when he needs a well known constitutional scholar to come to his defense. This time your claim that DJT has a legitimate “advice of counsel” defense in the Fani Willis and Jack Smith criminal cases. Here’s why you are wrong.

    First, allusions to the cases of Marc Elias and Jamie Raskin are irrelevant to your claim. While they filed legal challenges to election results they ACCEPTED the results of their failed legal challenges. In stark contrast, DJT refused to accept the results of all his over 60 failed attempts to get courts to go along with his false claims the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. DJT went to the next step and fomented an insurrection to overturn the election. When that failed he put together an illegal scheme to put up fake electors. Neither Elias nor Raskin did that!

    Second, DJT can’t now use the “advice of counsel” defense in the criminal case in Fulton County. The lawyers DJT relied on for advice, Sidney Powell, Ken Chesebro and Jenna Ellis have all entered into plea agreements. They will testify in Fani Willis’s prosecution that they admit there was no basis for DJT’s false claim he won the Georgia election. That will entirely undercut DJT’s “advice of counsel” defense. Now DJT bizarrely claims Powell was “never my lawyer”. Throwing Powell under the bus won’t change the facts.

    Third, it’s not a defense that “all three could keep their [law] licenses”. In fact, Sidney Powell is already in disciplinary proceedings in Texas and could well lose her license. In addition, a judge in California has already ruled John Eastman is responsible for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. Eastman will probably lose his law license. Same with Rudy Giuliani. His law license in NY has already been suspended and a court there has found RG made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” about the 2020 election. He will also lose his law license.

    Finally, what you conveniently ignore is that DJT had other “advice of counsel”–his own WH lawyers. Pat Cipollone and other WH lawyers told him there was no evidence of “massive fraud” in the election and urged him not to listen to RG, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Jeff Clark and Ken Chesebro. DJT says he “didn’t respect” the opinions of his own WH lawyers.. He decided instead to follow the Siren call of “team crazy” to try to overturn the election by an extrajudicial means.

    In retrospect, DJT should have followed the “advice of counsel” from his WH lawyers. That’s why he is in so much legal jeopardy!

    1. Isn’t it a hoot to witness the ‘lying fake news media’ work so hard, doing all it can, to literally ignore the Biden corruption, to ignore the Biden incompetence, to literally run cover for Biden, the MOST corrupt president in American history? They think you’re stupid. Democrats think their voters are stupid.
      In your case, they’re right.

    2. Dennis: Thank you for your well-written post. Jenna Ellis also was disciplined by the State Bar of Colorado:

      “Jenna Ellis was censured by a disciplinary judge in Colorado Wednesday, in the latest effort to hold accountable attorneys who boosted former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election reversal gambits. CNN reported:

      Ellis signed a stipulation stating that several comments she made about the 2020 election violated professional ethics rules barring reckless, knowing or intentional misrepresentations by attorneys, according to documents posted by Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel. As part of the stipulation, Ellis agrees to pay $224.

      Among the false statements highlighted in the stipulation were comments by Ellis on social media and in TV appearances claiming that the Trump campaign had evidence the election was “stolen.”

      “The public censure in this matter reinforces that even if engaged in political speech, there is a line attorneys cannot cross, particularly when they are speaking in a representative capacity,” Jessica Yates, attorney regulation counsel for the Colorado Supreme Court, said in a statement.

      Michael Melito, an attorney for Ellis, told CNN in a statement, “My client remains a practicing attorney in good standing in the State of Colorado. In a very heated political climate, we have secured that correct outcome.”

      So, Ellis admitted that Trump never had evidence to back up the Big Lie, and that admission is damning for Trump. People forget that Trump took a victory lap at 2:00 a.m. after Election Day, long before all of the votes were counted, but AFTER Biden was reported to be the likely winner. He is quoted as saying : “I’m not losing to Joe Biden”. Giuliani reportedly said something like: “just say you won anyway”–so that’s what he did. He went around the country on “Stop the Steal” tours, lying to his fans about rigged voting equipment, dead people voting, falsified ballots, ballots for Biden being counted multiple times, Trump ballots being discarded, and he even directed some of his lies against specific people, like Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, Georgia election workers he accused of bringing in “suitcases full of fake ballots”. He went after Secretaries of State, bullying them, trying to get them to say that their vote counts were wrong and to refuse to certify them. He tried to bully Pence into refusing the certified vote counts–all based on nothing. As you pointed out, he even went so far to get fake electors to file false Electoral College certificates saying he won, all, according to Ellis, without ANY evidence. There is STILL no evidence, but he won’t shut up about it. Ellis’s admission that there never was any evidence will doom his “advice of counsel” defense.

      Turley tries to turn Trump’s narcissistic lying around to blame the lawyers: “However, the question is whether a client should be subject to criminal prosecution in following such advice.” The Big Lie is NOT the product of Trump’s lawyers–HE is the one responsible. He made up the Big Lie even before Election Day, long before there could even be anything like evidence to back up the Big Lie. HE”S the one who got the lawyers to support the Big Lie–not the other way around.

      1. Ooh ooh “disciplined by the State Bar of Colorado”….as if that means jack sh*t these days.

        1. It’s her ADMISSION that there never was any evidence to back up the Big Lie that is the important part of the story. It proves that Trump KNEW the Big Lie was false. He HAD to know–because there never was any evidence–just lies. And, yes, getting disciplined by a state disciplinary commission is a big deal. If she steps out of line again, she could be looking at suspension or revocation of her law license. Usually, getting disciplined in one state results in reciprocal discipline in any other state in which the lawyer is licensed.

          1. She can’t admit something she couldn’t know. She could say she didn’t see evidence of something, but that’s quite different from knowing there was no evidence.

          1. She did nothing wrong. She was railroaded.
            She caved to corrupt prosecutors to save herself more grief.
            She knows dam well the election was stolen.
            The world knows the election was stolen.

          2. Actually, she did not. She said she repeated things without verifying them. That’s not lying.

            1. Look at WHAT she said: that there was EVIDENCE that the election was stolen. THAT was a lie. There wasn’t, and still isn’t any such evidence.

      3. The Big Lie?
        You know what the Big Lie is?
        That Biden “won” a free and fair election with 81 million “votes.”
        And you know what the problem is for the Democrats?
        More than half of the country believes the election was stolen (it was) and that Biden is illegitimate (he is).
        In other words, the Biden regime does not have “the consent of the governed.”

        1. Biden has more consent of the governed — citizens as a whole — than Trump had. Biden won the popular vote in 2020. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016.

    3. You seem to always respond to DJT’s “Siren Call” when he needs a well known constitutional scholar to come to his defense.

      The retard, shows to validate his intellectual vacuousness

      Prof Turley defends the Constitution. If you insist on delving into areas you have no concept of, at least understand the topic. Tell me exactly what the Prof has gotten wrong about the Constitution. (sorry I tried to make the question simple. I now retard wont “get it”)

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