Join us at our brand new blog - Blue Country Gazette - created for those who think "BLUE." Go to www.bluecountrygazette.blogspot.com

YOUR SOURCE FOR TRUTH

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Trump's impeachment defense is heavy on Fox News and Jeffrey Epstein





US President Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up as he walks from Marine One upon arrival on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, January 7, 2018, after spending the weekend at Camp David, the Presidential retreat in Maryland. / AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB        (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team got several additions Friday morning and there is SO MUCH to say. Let’s start with the new names: Pam Bondi, Alan Dershowitz, Jane Raskin, Robert Ray, Ken Starr. A few of these stand out, to say the least.

Bondi is the former Florida attorney general who took a $25,000 contribution from Trump shortly before she decided not to pursue a case against the fraudulent Trump University. She was also photographed with Lev Parnas multiple times. Bondi has been a prominent Trump defender on television.

Alan Dershowitz, a member of the O.J. Simpson defense team, was also one of sex predator Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers and also a friend of Epstein. Dershowitz has said that yes, he got a massage at Epstein’s mansion, but “I kept my underwear on during the massage.” He has been a prominent Trump defender on television. 

Ken Starr is obviously most famous from spending the 1990s turning an investigation into a real estate transaction into impeaching Bill Clinton for a sexual relationship. As CNN’s Elie Honig tweeted, “Now House Managers can point across the well and say: ‘There’s the same guy who interviewed @MonicaLewinsky’s ex-boyfriends, WH window washers and Kathleen Willey’s dentist. Now he doesn’t want us to hear from Bolton and Mulvaney.’”

During that time, Trump had some strong feelings about Starr, telling Matt Lauer that “I think Ken Starr's a lunatic. I really think that Ken Starr is a disaster.” But Starr has been … wait for it … a prominent Trump defender on television.

True story: Starr was also one of sex predator Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers. Oh, and he lost his job as president of Baylor University after accusations that he mishandled sexual assault allegations against football players.

Robert Ray followed Starr as independent counsel and has been, yes, a frequent Trump defender on television. In 2006 he was charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend. Jane Raskin was on Trump’s defense team during the Mueller investigation.

Trump declares exoneration from brutal GAO report because Dershowitz said so on Fox News



Alan Dershowitz (center) being led away from a conference he tried to disrupt in 2009
Sure, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office says that Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget broke the law by withholding aid from Ukraine, but forget about all that, because Fox News has exonerated Trump.

Trump tweeted a spectacularly dishonest claim made by Alan Dershowitz on Fox News’ Sean Hannnity show on Thursday night, that “The GOA (sic) got it exactly backwards. Here’s what they said. The law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities to those Congress has enacted into law. It’s exactly the opposite. The Constitution does not allow Congress to substitute its own priorities for the foreign policies of the President.” While Dershowitz had an impressive career as a criminal lawyer and legal academic, an expert in administrative law he is not—while the professionals at the GAO, though not infallible, are absolutely experts in the law they assess.

Dershowitz joined a series of other Republicans straining to argue that the GAO report is not as damning as it in fact is. Sen. Rand Paul, too, went with the “they misunderstand the law” angle, and it’s still wrong to a ridiculous “up is down” extent.

But Trump jumped so hard on the fake exoneration Dershowitz offered because it’s the best thing he’s got going. And for Dershowitz it appears to have been the final, successful audition to join Trump’s impeachment defense team, to which he’s been added along with Ken Starr and Robert Ray, and which will continue to be headed by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow.

No comments: