Deja Vu All Over Again

The call to the Ukrainian President was PERFECT. Read the Transcript! There was NOTHING said that was in any way wrong. Republicans, don’t be led into the fools trap of saying it was not perfect, but is not impeachable. No, it is much stronger than that. NOTHING WAS DONE WRONG!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2019

I had one criminal case in my law career, the price I paid for my Federal court license. Re-reading this Trump tweet I suddenly remembered it.

The charge was possession of a firearm by a felon. Our client insisted "NOTHING WAS DONE WRONG" because:

A) it wasn't his gun
B) the gun was in the package tray of the car
C) He was driving, as far from the gun as he could be while in the car.

He had been stopped on a traffic violation, if I recall correctly. He was a felon, there was a gun in the car, that violated federal law: voila, he found himself on the wrong end of a criminal charge with no defense to it.

"Possession" in law is not defined like "This gun is my possession." It doesn't mean ownership, merely custody and control. A gun in the car you are driving is in your custody and control. That is the beginning and the end of it. He had, as I say, no defense, even as he insisted as he was taken back to jail, "NOTHING WAS DONE WRONG."

Saying it loudly still doesn't make it so. Ignorance of the law is not a defense, either. My client was insistently ignorant of the law; it didn't keep him out of jail.