NOW IT CAN BE TOLD! 🧱

So Trump's lawyers did talk to Jack Smith before the D.C. indictment.

Lauro quickly launched into a lengthy presentation, making the case that Smith should forgo charges against Trump related to his bid to subvert the 2020 election. 

Sitting across the table from Smith and his prosecutors, Lauro spoke virtually uninterrupted for nearly an hour, Karl writes. 

Lauro’s presentation featured a now-familiar case — that Trump genuinely believed he won the election and was exercising his First Amendment right to challenge it and raise questions; that Trump was following the advice of his lawyers; and that he had already faced impeachment and an extensive congressional investigation over the matter. Indicting him would just inflame a divided country further, Lauro said, according to Karl’s account. 

“As Lauro spoke, the prosecutors took notes, but they said nothing. Smith waited until Lauro was done speaking and then, without commenting on what he just heard, he bid the Trump lawyers farewell,” Karl writes. “According to sources with direct knowledge of the meeting, Smith did not ask a single question. And aside from the pleasantries at the start of the meeting (including the offer of a glass of water) and the goodbye at the end, neither Smith nor the two prosecutors said anything at all.”

They literally had nothing to say; on either side.

Trump has never had a legal argument, never made a legal argument, never will present a legal argument. In that case or in his civil trial.

According to the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, "On the horizon is a ploy by Trump’s lawyers to interrupt the three-month court battle with an outsized request: the declaration of a complete mistrial," later adding, "It’s a nuclear option, albeit a warhead that’ll likely be a dud, given that Engoron has repeatedly declined to pause the proceedings or even reconsider past rulings." 

That filing appears to be part of a two-front assault to derail the trial, working in tandem with a letter sent by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct questioning Engoron's ethics — a move one legal analyst called "embarrassing." 

The Beast report adds, "... the defense team’s boiling anger has turned from the AG’s office to the judge, on whom the fate of the entire case relies. The shift is most evident from [Trump lawyer Christopher] Kise’s changing demeanor. Although the former Florida solicitor general leans heavily on his Southern charm, his genteel approach with Engoron has been replaced with outright hostility. At every turn, he now warns the judge that his comments 'make a poor record' that will surely come up on appeal."

These are being reported breathlessly; but both are fucking jokes. Trump really does have the worst lawyers. They really are trying to make bricks without straw; or mud; and apparently without even knowing how to make bricks. Mistrial is a “nuclear option”? It’s not even a squib. And Lauro’s argument before Smith: I’m only surprised Smith didn’t burst out laughing.

As I said, these clowns couldn’t beat first year students in a moot court.