This situation is a) unprecedented b) raises ethics issues that a typical first year law student or a bright 16-year-old could figure out c) is easily resolved, though the solution would be messy to execute and d) is being misrepresented by the news media because of course it is. I have been stalling, I admit, exploring it here because I am sick to death of Trump related controversies, but I just discussed it 45 minutes ago in an ethics seminar, so I can’t avoid the story any longer.
The Facts: Donald Trump, then a lowly private citizen (but ex-President) submitted a claim, lodged in late 2023, seeking damages for alleged violations of his rights by the F.B.I. and the special counsel tricked -up Russian election tampering investigation. In the summer of 2024, his lawyers filed a second complaint accusing the F.B.I. of violating Trump’s privacy when it raided Mar-a-Lagoin 2022 for to search for classified documents. That claim also accused the Biden Justice Department of malicious prosecution (Gee, ya think?).
Naturally, the Biden Justice Department (which also had a conflict of interest, as it was unlikely to relish the prospect of admitting wrongdoing during the Presidential campaign, did nothing, leaving the matter to be resolved after the election. But Trump won, and many of his lawyers are now officials in the Justice Department. They have, essentially switched sides. Even the President, not known for his sensitivity to ethical matters, realizes the problem. “I have a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I became president, I said, I’m sort of suing myself,” Trump has said, adding: “It sort of looks bad, I’m suing myself, right? So I don’t know. But that was a lawsuit that was very strong, very powerful.”
Let’s take that last part with the proverbial grain of salt, but the conflict is a real one. “What a travesty,” said Bennett L. Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University sought out by the Times because he is apparently freaking out. “The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.” He added: “And then to have people in the Justice Department decide whether his claim should be successful or not, and these are the people who serve him deciding whether he wins or loses. It’s bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe.”
To begin with, the situation isn’t Trump’s fault. When he filed the complaint (it isn’t technically a suit yet), he wasn’t President, and had no way of knowing that he would be (at least until Kamala and Gov. Knucklehead started talking). The Democrats and Biden were the ones who decided to try to win an election by prosecuting the primary threat to their power. “The situation has no parallel in American history,” sayeth the Times. Yes, that because no previous administration sought to weaponize the legal system to win an election.
Now, unquestionably, the Justice Department has an unresolvable conflict of interest in its ranks. The only one solution is to leave its ranks: the whole Department must recuse itself and the matter be handed off to an independent, trustworthy group of qualified lawyers to resolve it.
Good luck finding them. I can think of one lawyer independent enough to do the job, not beholden to Trump and not eager to foil him “to save democracy.” Me.
Meanwhile, the news media has been relentlessly lying about how this mess came about. The Times headline is typical: “Trump Said to Demand Justice Dept. Pay Him $230 Million for Past Cases.” That falsely implies that Trump has made the claims since becoming President. He is not “demanding” the money any more than any litigant claiming damages “demands” them. The Times headline is especially weaselly, a classic of the Fake News genre. “Trump is said to demand.” Nice.
That doesn’t mean he is demanding; it means someone, anyone, says so. It’s not just hearsay, it’s anonymous hearsay. Using this cheap tabloid trick and unethical standard, the news media can literally print any calumny it chooses and call it a news flash. Trump is said to be a racist. Trump is said to be planning to end U.S. democracy. Trump is said to be the love child of Richard Speck and a baboon. Trump is said to be an audio-animatron created by a mad Disney scientist. Trump is said to be holding Sidney Sweeney in the White House basement as his sex slave.
Yeah, it’s a conflict of interest problem, and one that wouldn’t exist if Democrats had been willing to try to keep the White House by having a competent POTUS and nominating someone who actually won a primary or two and could put five words together without sounding like Gabby Johnson from “Blazing Saddles.”
Ethics Alarms 
Would it be resolved (legally and ethically) by Donald Trump withdrawing his claim?
That too. But why should he?
It would be a good PR move, as it makes clear that Trump is unwilling to enrich himself at expense of the taxpayer.
The MAGA base would rather see the swamp cleared by having all those responsible for the lawfare against Trump fired.
Because he made his prosecution in the documents case almost inevitable by refusing to return the documents when notified that he had them by archives, then by DOJ (as EVERY SINGLE president, and almost every single person ever accused of taking documents did), then clearly MOVED the documents to avoid discovery. So…that prosecution is clearly his fault, and requires no compensation. Was it unprecedented to raid a former president’s house? Sure. But no former president had been this childishly defiant before. As for the election overturning case–you are blaming that on Biden’s DOJ? That’s like blaming Nuremberg on the Allies. Trump conspired to overturn a legal election. He colluded to file fake electoral votes. He asked state officials in Georgia to “find” just enough ballots so he could win. And then, he encouraged his followers to come to DC on the day of the electoral count in the Capitol because “it will be wild!” Um…any DOJ that didn’t investigate that conduct would be unworthy of America. Maybe he was entirely innocent, but it certainly merited investigation at the very least. So Trump deserves…nothing in compensation. And the DOJ wasn’t politicized. There was the traditional wall between the WH and DOJ. The same DOJ investigated Biden and his own son. There’s not a shred of evidence that Biden told Garland to do this. Or, if I’m wrong–what evidence do you have of weaponization? ALSO–even if all of the above is wrong–maybe Trump should do it as the right thing to do, ethically? Because the appearance of self-dealing is so blatantly obvious. And…he’s destroyed the wall between DOJ and the WH. So no one would believe that the HIGHLY COMPETENT, non-partisan (sorry, just threw up in my mouth a little) folks he’s put in high positions at DOJ will be objective on this case. On any case, really.
Kazoo, you are well and truly Trump deranged. Your comments read like a collection of DNC-issued talking points. I admire your self-confident conviction you are right in every respect. Truly impressive. It must be great living in such a black and white world. It’s kind of entertaining having you here. It’s as if a NYT editorial board member has come down to Ethics Alarms and graced us with his presence.
Maybe, “Assumes facts not in evidence” would be the appropriate reply.
I don’t think I’m right in every respect. I see a lot of assertions made here with equal fervor. I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong. On another thread, I bluntly conceded that the other poster knew things I didn’t, and I retracted my comment. Where do you see me being black and white and inappropriately certain? Or, to put another way–what did I say that wasn’t factually grounded? Did Trump call up the state authorities of GA and say “find me” the exact number of votes needed for him to win Georgia? Did he refuse to return documents? Did he move them in an effort to hide them? All of these things seem to have been established, but if you know otherwise, I’m all ears. I’m frequently wrong.
As am I, but shhhhhhhh! I decided long ago that the best way to get ethics discussions going was to be assertive and emphatic, and even deliberately controversial, while secretly considering counter-arguments and respecting those who offer them articulately and persuasively. Believe it or Not!
On the Georgia electors, if you read the transcipt https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/03/politics/trump-brad-raffensperger-phone-call-transcript, he was convinced there was significant fraud, and that if they actually investigated they would easily find there were more fraudulent votes than the margin of error. He was not asking them to commit fraud, he was asking them to actually seriously investigate to find enough invalid votes to invalidate the results.
You can say he was wrong, certainly, but it’s pretty clear that he believed there was more than enough to outweigh the margin of victory.
Exactly. I think a case could be made he wasn’t saying, “Create a bunch of fraudulent ballots for me,” he was saying, “There have to be ballots out there that have been stuffed into closets, find them for me.” And what leverage did he have over the guy he was speaking to? Did he threaten the guy he was speaking to? Did he say, “Or else?” Kazoo, this is the sort of thing your talking point view of these event ignore. You assert a suspect conclusion as fact. As is the case when you say he instigated the January 6 riot and it was an insurrection intended to subvert a constitutional procedure. You just put the horse before the cart because you’re spouting talking points which are nothing more than assertions.
Yeah, the “Trump illegally tried to overthrow the election” argument has been embedded in the media brainwashing assault for five years, and its disheartening to hear JD embrace it. As I wrote at the time, he was 100% wrong to so publicly declare that the election was “stolen,” he was irresponsible to give a rabble-rousing speech to the fools on January 6, and he bears responsibility for the result, though he did not incite a riot or lead an “insurrection.” BUT
1. He had taken an oath to protect the Constitution, and was convinced that an election had been illicitly taken from the voters. In that case, he was within the obligation of his office to do everything within his power to prevent what appeared to be a fait accompli.
2. There was (and is) certainly circumstantial and logical evidence to support that belief. Even without actual voting and counting shenanigans, the Democrats’ racist and phony BLM riots and the CDC-led panic-mongering over the Wuhan virus—AND the democracy-strangling failure of the Axis news media to fairly report on the campaign and the candidates (Hunter’s computer, for instance) made the election a disgrace to democracy.
3. Trump’s a fighter—that’s the good part—and was determined not to let the Left get away with what was essentially cheating on many levels. Unfortunately, it was a fait accompli. Like Nixon and Gore before him, he had no practical choice but to express his frustration and accept the results “for the good of the nation,” shake hands with Biden, ride in the damn limo with him, and live to fight another day. But he’s not wired that way.
4. The “fake electors” were a reasonable and legal back-up plan to have ready if the courts declared the results invalid. Trump did not have the evidence to make that happen. His lawyers gave him bad advice.
5. The case against Trump regarding the election rested on a presumption of bad faith, because the AXIS believes that nothing Trump does is in good faith in their view. If it was in good faith, then he was doing his job, protecting the Constitution as he is pledged to do. The Georgia accusations are a good example. Trump asked Kemp to “find the votes.” To the Trump-Deranged, that meant “falsely change the totals.” He meant “We know a lot of my votes got lost and buried to give Biden the state: find them!”
6. We cannot know at this point if the election was “stolen” in the sense that Trump received more actual votes than Biden. We DO know that the election had no integrity or credibility, and that the Democrats cheated—with the riots, with the lock-down to wreck the economy, with Biden using the pandemic to avoid campaigning and revealing that he was, you know, senile, with state officials changing the rules for voting making the process untrustworthy, and with the news media doing everything in their power to avoid revealing how unfit and corrupt Biden was.
7. Again, Trump was 100% mistaken and wrong in the way he handled swallowing that giant bitter pill. But he committed no crime.
Criminy! There’s a post in a comment!
I’m familiar with the argument that, because Trump believed that Fraud happened, he was ethically pursuing all legal outcomes. A couple points:
JD:
1. I know “My lawyer made me do it” is not a persuasive defense in many cases, including this one. You are responsible for your own decisions and actions. My only point was that Trump got bad advice, and did not have mens rea to break any laws, because he didn’t think he was.
2.Yes, Trump had Chicken Little problems. But just as being paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you, being wrong about past cheats and fixes doesn’t mean he was wrong about this one. I think he was probably correct. Where he was wrong was in thinking there was anything he could do about it, or should.
3. You betray your bias by calling the electors “fraudulent.” They were potential, alternate electors that had to be in place before a court ruling that a state’s voting had been tampered with and the results should be reversed. Alternate electors had been used in other election disputes. If a court had ruled the election fraudulent, then the electors would not be.
4. I don’t view those emails as proving criminal intent, and anyway, if it was legal to have alternate electors in place, and it was and is, then what one lawyer wrote about it is irrelevant.
I know “My lawyer made me do it” is not a persuasive defense in many cases, including this one. You are responsible for your own decisions and actions. My only point was that Trump got bad advice, and did not have mens rea to break any laws, because he didn’t think he was.–the problem with this, as you well know, is that it can’t JUST be that someone got bad advice, so they can never be convicted. There is a mountain of caselaw that says–if you deliberately seek out bad advice from lawyers, or if you have reason to think that what you are contemplating is illegal, you can be convicted. SO–if your ATTORNEY GENERAL, who has been with you for months, supporting you strongly in the Mueller case, etc, tells you–“there is no fraud nearly large enough to overturn this election”…you are liable. OR–it’s at least worth investigating! Remember, this whole thread is about whether the case against Trump was SO crazy that it merits him getting his legal fees back. Surely there was enough here to merit investigation, right? I mean, words mean something, facts matter, don’t they? And yes, while Trump’s inability to ever ever ever admit error isn’t the crux of the legal case, it does make his defenders look like they just got their back hairs shaved by Occam’s razor till they bled. What’s MORE likely? That a nationwide conspiracy, undetectable in numerous court proceedings since then, still awaiting exposure (there’s been no evidence of widespread fraud, and your own posts don’t even suggest something fraudulent–the “media” is not a fraud that could overturn an election! Nor is Hunter’s laptop) caused Trump to lose OR…that the man who can’t admit his own weight or height when it is obvious to the entire world…who declared every bankruptcy a victory, every divorce a triumph…couldn’t admit he got beat like a red headed stepchild riding a rented mule?
I think a judge should dismiss the suit (when there actually is one) without prejudice and toll the statute of limitations such that Trump can bring the action when he is no longer President. With Trump in control of the actual defendant, it can’t be ethically resolved unless he dismisses his claim, which as you correctly point out, he has no reason to do.
I think he has a case, but this case cannot be adjudicated presently due to an irreconcilable conflict of interest.
Glenn, you really think he should be put in a position where he might be exposed to a Democratic administration making the decisions?
I didn’t say that. What I said was “when he is no longer President,” not when the next Democratic president arrives. A Republican may well win the presidency in the next election, and there would be no conflict even then.
This seems a fair solution. If we are ever to escape this death loop of polarized hatred, we need to have some trust in the non-partisan administration of justice. It is being tested right now as never before, but I haven’t given up hope in its restoration. Incidentally, if you are interested in legal ethics or the politicization of the DOJ, I encourage everyone to listen to Lawyer Oyer, she’s just started posting amazing videos. In this one, she explains how Trump has already cost $1 billion in restitution with pardons that didn’t go through the regular process, many to manifestly guilty parties who escaped their fines with donations to Trump interests that were fractions of what they owed. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO064KWjWDL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
My faith in a non-partisan administration of justice was severely fractured by the New York trial that ended up with Trump being convicted of 34 (or however many) felonies. Such a kangaroo court, and so many people don’t even care because Trump.
There is a vast gulf between state prosecutors and federal. In the modern era, federal prosecutors have been highly regarded for ethics in general. I’d argue they’ve been more known for ethical conduct, in terms of partisanship, than for competence, although known for both. As for Trump’s trial–I think there was a lot of overcharging, but he seemed pretty guilty on the core charge. He’s always skated on the edge of the law throughout his time in real estate, screwing over vendors, workers, partners, and the tax man. I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier! He has the ethics of a mobster. Remember what he said about his former attorney when he spoke to the feds? He called him a “rat”…that’s not how normal business people talk. It’s how mobsters talk.
What was the core charge?
falsifying business records. He wanted to pay a porn star $130,000 to buy her silence about the time he had sex with her around the birth of Melania’s child. It was right before the election. Hiding it as legal expenses was serving a double purpose. It was a business expense, so deductible PLUS he could hide what might be an illegal campaign expenditure (ie, it was serving a political purpose). Trump has, since his twenties, participated in massive accounting shenanigans, shell companies, misdirected expenses, mostly to avoid taxes in the real estate business. Just a few years before this, the Trump Organization pleaded guilty to tax evasion on a mammoth scale, in which they dodged taxes on compensation by offering numerous employees free housing without including that on their compensation, free tuition at private schools, etc. His in house finance guy went to jail. This is also the man who cheated on the Trump Foundation, the charity that he ran mostly off the donations of other companies. He was constantly in legal disputes, and one way to resolve them was to get the other guy to give to the “charity”…because it would be tax deductible for them, and then it became an (illegal) slush fund for Trump. He even used it to pay Don Jr.s Boy Scout dues (which was illegal self dealing, and for about $40! Trump has always been a cheap MF as well as a cheat). That house of cards came down and the self-dealing and fraud was so obvious that he signed a consent decree to never operate a charity in the state of NY again…ever. They had broken many other charity laws, but in the interest of space, I won’t note them all.
Also worth noting is the false reporting of the value of multiple properties, over years, to lenders, investors, and tax authorities. This isn’t unknown in real estate, but Trump took it way way way too far, over the line of legality.
He was a pretty shitty businessman, almost from day one, in contrast to his dad. His main talent, and it truly was a gift, was PLAYING a successful businessman. At that, he may have no equal.
I don’t know why you’re bringing up a bunch of things unrelated to the actual New York trial, as it has nothing to do with those proceedings.
So you think that paying hush money to silence activity which was not illegal (which is done by companies, politicians, and individuals every day), is illegal? Or was it coding that money as “legal expense” rather than “porn star expense” (by the way, hush money and other types of legal payments are almost always categorized as legal expenses on the P&L)? Or was it the timing? Is hush money legal except when it happens before an election?
And I don’t want to hear that you think these charges were legit because the jury found him guilty (circular logic), or because he’s guilty in other aspects of his life. What, specifically, about this charge, was legitimate?
Unrelated things brought up to demonstrate that the conduct under discussion, falsifying business records, is pretty much a Tuesday to Trump. It’s not even one of his major work crimes, like fucking small vendors out of their just pay, or stiffing illegal immigrant workers. But to answer your questions–you can’t use business funds to assist a campaign for office. An in kind donation to a political campaign is illegal. So the falsification served to conceal a crime. I agree with Jack, that it wasn’t the strongest legal case against Trump. The documents case, the election fraud, the Georgia case, and even the civil litigation on real estate fraud all seemed stronger, and indeed, more serious in their damage to the rule of law. BUT–the evidence in the case, in Cohen’s testimony, was clear. They put stuff that wasn’t true into official business records. That this was a regular occurrence at the Trump Organization is not in any way exculpatory.
This is a good explainer, in part because it is so long before the Trump charges, and deals with the Cohen charges. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/12/14/michael-cohen-explaining-why-hush-money-illegal-donation/2287647002/#
Also–I don’t think politicians pay hush money “every day.” I’ve done research in archives of campaigns (failed and successful) for every presidential campaign since 1960 to 2000, and read widely about other years, and the hush money payments are…not there. True, Trump makes a regular practice of NDAs and working with the media to “catch and kill” stories to keep them from the public, but he is sui generis in both things. John Edwards paid, not hush money, but child support, although it functioned in much the same way. I don’t think Gary Hart paid. Did Ted Kennedy? Did Clinton pay hush money? I don’t remember him doing that. Who are these politicians you know who regularly engage in this? Well, maybe that’s a stupid question, since if they succeed…we don’t know about it. But then…how do you know it’s so common? I do agree with you that hush money payments are not automatically illegal, but they are when they assist a campaign for office unlawfully. Flip the script–if Bernie Sanders had a side piece, and that side piece was about to go public with their tryst, during his campaign, and he got some college to pay his accuser off the books to shut up, and reimbursed the college from his wife’s college slush fund…(back before it went bankrupt)….and she convinced the CFO of the college to label it legal expenses…that would expose both of them to legal danger, although it’s not a perfect analogy, since Trump was also the CEO of the organization, and thus more plausibly liable.
Hush money payments are made all the time, including by businesses, politicians, and individuals. That’s beside the point. It’s not illegal.
“but they are when they assist a campaign for office unlawfully…” And yet no one has ever been convicted of this supposed crime.
You yourself provided the reasonable doubt that would have, in a fair trial, resulted in acquittal–Melania Trump. It’s absolutely reasonable to conclude, as is what got John Edwards out of trouble, that the payment was made to protect Donald Trump’s personal life or business. In fact, if Donald Trump had ever paid hush money to anyone when he wasn’t running for president, it would pretty much prove that his payment to Stormy Daniels was not a campaign contribution but a run-of-the-mill legal contract between two individuals (or between Stormy and Trump’s company).
And we haven’t even touched the true legal travesty–are you okay with the kicker, what escalated a misdemeanor to a felony–being a “theoretical crime”? It’s akin to a three-strikes law being activated without the other two strikes being actual proven crimes.
The “hush-money” scandal: Not the lamest of the cases against Trump, but well in the competition, particularly the way similar and worse conduct by Democratic officials have been handled. I know it drives good people crazy that someone with Trump’s character and proclivities ended up as President, but what matters once a President is elected is what he does. not what he’s gotten away with. Constantly going back to list past misconduct is unproductive and desperate, and also is cherry-picking. Trump has ultimately been successful in every sphere he’s entered, and has recovered from many failures and has solved many problems in the process. He’s where he is because enough people concluded that it would take someone like him to clean the Augean stables created by decades of conservative apathy and progressive contamination. It’s a shame that it came to that, but they are being proved right.
Thanks for the refresh on the arguments on the pro-Trump side. I remember saying at the time, that this was the weakest of the cases against him (I think the others are very strong). This one has those odd factors you point out. I don’t agree that it is a slam dunk against him. The fact that the appeals court did not uphold his request to delay sentencing during his appeal says something, I think. The strongest argument for it is that what you call “theoretical crimes” were actually used to send Cohen to prison. They aren’t theoretical if they sent someone to jail, right? Still, you make solid points.
Not “pro-Trump”…pro-any President or public figure being made the target of politicized prosecutions and double standards.
(I think every one of the prosecutions were incredibly weak. But any case that depended so heavily on a disbarred lawyer convicted of perjury is per se unethical to prosecute. An unbiased judge should have found as a matter of law that Cohen was not credible and could not be considered in a guilty verdict.)
I think in most prosecutions of people who were, together, engaged in breaking the law, you don’t discredit the one who turns state’s evidence by saying “he lied about the crime we are investigating! He’s a crook!” Sure, the Defense Lawyers will argue that, but it doesn’t usually win the judge. So much of our justice system relies precisely on that, particularly in white collar prosecutions.
But Cohen had been a notorious liar even before he was disbarred. I remember doing an ethics seminar focusing on Cohen at one point when he was Trump’s fixer long before Trump got into politics. He lied in interviews. I told a Rhode Island group that he might be the most unethical lawyer alive. (I was more naive then.)
He wasn’t just a notorious liar. He was also a shitty lawyer, with really weak ethics, and he’s not that bright. It’s weird how he got a job, huh? Only the best people….the thing about hiring dumb people with low ethics who don’t mind lying–they are very loyal. Competent people with ethical standards, like Barr, or Sessions…there’s only so far they would go before their consciences got in the way. But Attorney General Cohen…he would have been loyal right up until he was facing charges himself.
I remember seeing him on TV in the early campaign, and someone brought up the rape allegation that Ivana had in her first draft of her memoir, and he fiercely and confidently asserted that there was no such crime as marital rape. That a man literally could not rape his own wife and therefore, even if what Ivana said happened had happened, Trump was innocent of any crime. And of course the interviewer didn’t know that one of the real triumphs of first wave feminism was getting the marital exception out of rape laws (last state to fall was 1992). So no one called Cohen on it live, but it was a thing for a couple days.
All true. Trump will always have to answer for employing the likes of Cohen when he claims to appoint “the very best people.” POTUS values loyalty above all else, but Cohen wasn’t even loyal. In contrast, Susan McDougal went to jail to avoid fingering the Clintons. And she was one of Bill’s out-the-door pardons in 2000 as part of her reward.
One way or another, she probably fingered Clinton.
I think it’s worth noting that she was not an employee of Clinton, but probably a lover. Why didn’t she testify? Again, we don’t know–to protect their illicit relationship (which is likely but not confirmed?) or to protect financial shenanigans involving Whitewater–or both? I guess one similarity between Whitewater and the financial case against Trump is that, if either man had lost his election race, it’s very unlikely the cases would have been brought. Whitewater, if it was a corrupt real estate deal, would have just been another bankruptcy in Arkansas. Ditto for the business records of a payment to a porn star. Anyway, no smoking gun of criminality ever emerged from Whitewater. I always thought Hillary’s cattle trading was a more obvious case…what a brilliant way to give a bribe–you tell someone to buy futures at just the right moment. There IS risk, of course, because there are no certainties in futures, but… If you read enough books about the Clintons, their sense of entitlement is what fueled these problems. You have two Yale law graduates, who have both been seen as the smartest folks around for years. Even among Yale folks. There were legends about Clinton at law school–he took most of a semester off to work on a CT Senate race, came back, borrowed folks notes, and got better grades than anyone. Similarly, when HRC was teaching at Arkansas’ law school, her colleagues thought they were looking at the first female SC justice. Both believed that if they hadn’t had to go back to Arkansas for his political career, they’d be rich in NYC or DC like a lot of their Yale friends. So they SACRIFICED so much to help “the people”…but that sense of entitlement led them to a series of financial transactions that looked ugly, to say the least. Of course, since 2000, they’ve both been well off, well, more like 2003 because of all his legal bills. (incidentally, on WJC’s brilliance–I think he’s someone who has always had an AMAZING memory, and a remarkable glibness/charisma, so he can make connections lightning fast–but he’s not a deep thinker at all. He’s an intellectual magpie-he grabs shiny objects, knows exactly where to store them in his prodigious memory, and when to bring them out to a relevant discussion. I think she’s probably a better thinker, but a much much much worse politician)
“One way or another, she probably fingered Clinton.”
And here I thought it’d be the other way around…
“So they SACRIFICED so much to help ‘the people‘ “
IMO, “the people” they helped were holed up in NYC financial district corner offices; from counterpunch.org (never accused of leaning starboard):
The Clintons and Wall Street: 24 Years Of Enriched Each Other
PWS
And here I thought it’d be the other way around…
Cheap shot. But funny! And well-deserved…
Jeepers, Jack, that was a belt-high heater…I just had to swing…
PWS