Monday, June 12, 2017

No DC or Criminal Attorneys for Trump

We’ve seen a lot of attention [...] to President Trump’s lawyer declining to rule out the President firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The bigger news is the lawyer himself, Jay Sekulow.

Sekulow is far from an unknown. Indeed, he is one of the top conservative legal activists in the country. For 25 years he’s led a group which litigates cases on behalf of religious conservatives looking for exemptions from state and federal laws. The organization is consciously styled as a right-wing version of the ACLU. What is relevant however is that Sekulow is not a criminal attorney.

[...]

There is literally nothing in Sekulow’s professional background (other than perhaps simply having a law degree) which would suit him to the very specific legal task of defending a sitting president from legal jeopardy. This sounds like of a piece with the President’s lead personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz.

[...]

He’s not a defense attorney. He’s not even an attorney with any specialty in litigating the particular legal privileges of a president. [...] Notably, Sekulow is also a big conservative media figure. He has a daily radio show and he’s a frequent guest on Fox and Christian conservative media.

  TPM
Which is why Trump would want him.
What is revealing is that Trump does not appear to be hiring attorneys with experience even in major criminal cases.
We've heard those attorneys wouldn't take the job.
Finding out that Sekulow is on the Trump team too raises real questions about whether Trump will have anyone on the team with a skillset suited to the kind of storm he’s entering. My best guess is that apart from Kasowitz where the issue is trust, Trump is hiring based on political allegiance, demonstrated aggressiveness and a willingness to tell the client what he wants to hear.
Trump doctrine.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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