All the president's liars

Welcome to impeachment in the Trump era, where the president cheers on his attorneys as they blow right past any suggestion that they themselves were direct witnesses — if not culpable — in a scheme that helped make their client America’s third chief executive to be impeached.

It’s a theme that has been replayed throughout Trump’s life: The lawyers he brings in to authorize and defend his behavior end up in their own legal morass. Trump’s longtime legal fixer, Michael Cohen, is doing three years in federal prison for his election-season role in paying off women who alleged affairs with Trump. Former White House counsel Don McGahn ended up as a star witness for special counsel Robert Mueller after he had a front-row seat to Trump’s potential obstruction of justice. Rudy Giuliani has hired a team of criminal defense attorneys as the Justice Department investigates his recent behavior while serving as personal counsel to the president.

For now, Trump’s current attorneys appear to be embracing their role as supporting actors in a drama that will play out on the Senate floor for another week if not longer, sparring frequently with their Democratic investigators and leaving Chief Justice John Roberts to decide just how many more times he’ll need to serve as the chief of the Senate’s decorum police.

  Politico

The only time he's had any objection to anything is when Jerry Nadler accused the Republicans of treachery.*  He hasn't had any problem with Republicans absenting themselves for long stretches of time.  Or Trump's lawyers' various lies.

Even before opening arguments, House Democrats warned White House counsel Pat Cipollone that they have evidence showing he’s a material witness in their impeachment case and that he should consider removing himself from the president’s defense team for ethical reasons or risk “seriously damaging the fairness of the trial.”

That's no threat to the Trump cabal. Fairness is not what they're after.

Democrats prosecuting Trump had accused Cipollone and Sekulow of fudging facts to present a more sympathetic version of the Ukraine scandal that threatens to upend Trump’s presidency and his political future.

There's a missing word: accurately accused.

On Wednesday, House impeachment prosecutors name-dropped Giuliani more than 100 times during their opening presentations on the Senate floor. That was on top of nearly 60 mentions Tuesday [...] . And that’s in addition to 91 Giuliani references in the opening brief that the House filed last weekend.

[...]

As usual, Trump doesn’t appear fazed by the mounting criticism of his lawyers. He called Cipollone “a high-quality human being” during a news conference Wednesday at the conclusion of an international economic summit in Davos, Switzerland.

“I was very impressed with Pat,” the president added of Cipollone, whose arguments on the Senate floor marked the first time he’d said anything in public since taking the White House job in late 2018. “He had great emotion yesterday. Pat is a brilliant guy, but I've never seen that emotion. And that’s real emotion. That’s because he knows this is a hoax. And I was very proud of the job he did.”

Is this also a characteristic of narcissists - or authoritarians: pretense and show of emotion? Remember Kavanaugh? And Graham during Kavanaugh's hearing? Emoting seems to be prized. The spectacle is the thing. A tried and true weapon in the dictator's arsenal.  (And of the narcissists I know.)

As for Giuliani, Trump said he made the decision to keep arguably his most famous lawyer off his official Senate defense “because I don't want there to be a conflict.”

“I’d love to have Rudy on my team,” the president added. “But, you know, he could be a witness at some point, if this whole sham continues.”

And so could Cipollone. And Sekulow.

Lev Parnas, the Giuliani associate indicted on federal campaign finance violations, told NBC’s Rachel Maddow last week that Sekulow was well aware of Giuliani’s lead role in the Ukraine pressure campaign — even though he said Sekulow “didn’t agree with what Rudy was doing.”

Backing up his claims, Parnas supplied House investigators with an October 2019 email showing Sekulow spoke to the president about having John Dowd, a former Trump lawyer, represent Parnas as congressional investigators sought evidence about the Ukraine scheme.

But Trump doesn't know Parnas, right?

Cipollone is seen as someone in the middle of several episodes tied to the impeachment probe.

He’s the boss of John Eisenberg, the top White House national security lawyer whom several witnesses have identified as someone with direct knowledge of the president’s Ukraine actions. Cipollone has also signed off on several letters the White House sent to the House rejecting its requests for materials.

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

*UPDATE:  Turns out that was only because our favorite Whiney Winnie tattled:

UPDATE 1/25: