Trump’s Inability to Lead
Back in May of 2017, I used this same title on a blog post (See Here). And like a lightning bolt hitting the exact same spot, we find ourselves back at the beginning of this horrendous administration. During that 2017 event, administration lawyers attempted to cover-up the news that former General Michael Flynn could be compromised by his lies and activities.
In Warren Zevon’s classic song, Lawyers, Guns and Money, one line sticks out, “Send lawyers, guns, and money, the shit has hit the fan!” And for Trump, “it” seems to keep hitting the twirling reality of Washington. In many cases, the President picks the stuff up and throws it upon himself, like an orange orangutan.
Lawyers are important people. We have one in our family and they defend and work within the system to make sure injustices don’t fall on any human standing on our soil or acting on behalf of this country. What we see in this latest Trump fiasco is a failure to follow the principles of the legal profession. Rudy Giuliani is a lawyer who used guns and money to shake down the Ukrainian government.
Follow this logic. Giuliani is a lawyer. We assume, because he was a prosecutor in New York, that he is a member of the New York bar. His license to practice law will remain intact as long as he follows the rules and policies of that body. We do not know if Donald Trump has a contract with Rudy or if he’s paid him a retainer. Let’s assume Rudy is at least a little smart and not working for free. He has declared himself the President’s personal lawyer. By law, that means he may work on Trump’s personal business and affairs. As has been stated by the State Department, Mr. Giuliani does not speak for the US Government, meaning that he is not an agent of the United States and probably does not have security clearance. Giuliani is acting on behalf of Donald Trump, personally.
This brings us to other kinds of attorneys. There are counsellors to the White House who are part of the government. They decided to move politically damaging meeting notes from one server to another one. They acted on the justification that they were protecting the President. They broke a law while working for Trump and, without a whistleblower complaint, they might have gotten away with it. Trump is the boss of the White House and he has admitted that lawyers attempted to hide the text of that call from others. It was not a top-secret document and was eventually released by the Donald, himself. This is much like the bygone Watergate era, when White House insiders admitted that the president recorded all of his Oval Office calls.
Lawyers sometime get rendered speechless by a client’s unknowing confession to a crime. By talking so much on TV, I suggest that Rudy Giuliani has caused more harm to Donald J. Trump than to Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Giuliani’s lack of discipline has overturned more breadcrumbs than a drunken deli worker. The actions Rudy took for Trump on the Ukraine affair were done as a personal lawyer; thus, those actions are designed to help his client personally. The request for the Ukraine president to open an investigation was made to help Trump’s reelection campaign.
It’s official business when lawyers in certified roles, with security clearances and titles within the government, do the business of the administration. The government and the bar associations can discipline attorneys who break the law, disregard policies or run afoul of ethics departments and their inspectors. Rudy may not have broken any laws with his badgering of the new President of Ukraine, but he certainly exposed Donald Trump as a ruthless, lawless piece of shit. Bring on the fan!
So far, we have seen two kinds of lawyers in this story but we cannot end this report without mentioning a third kind of lawyer, one who should have known better. He’s Attorney General of the United States of America William Barr. The Justice Department knew of these memos and was aware that a national security lawyer urged the White House to move the readout of the call with Ukraine to a super-secret computer. What did William Barr know and when did he know it? Did William Barr have anything to do with the “nothing to see here” ruling on the whistleblower matter with Ukraine? Was Barr involved with the White House to help cover up the coverup? And, more importantly, do we, the taxpayers, get a discount on a double impeachment?
One of the other lines from the Zevon classic is, “An innocent bystander, somehow I got stuck between a rock and a hard place…” And yes, the “innocent bystander” in this narrative is the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. He’s just trying to fortify his country against the angry Russia bear breathing in his eastern border face. This ally is indeed caught between a rock and a hard place. What Mr. Zelensky really needs are lawyers, guns and money. And Donald Trump needs to shut up and start to help people who are strategically important to our security. You know, America First!
Read About The Country We Love
The book that tells it like it is…
Gold, God, Guns & Goofballs shows how we’ve wasted our GOLD on bad wars and corruption. While GOD is there for many people as a spiritual enrichment and the provider of glowing feelings, the truth is just praying and believing will not change our major arc. We don’t determine who gets a GUN. We aren’t sure if we have paramilitary groups ready to storm the White House or a White Castle. There is no control of weapons. The GOOFBALLS with the power constantly try to manipulate us into spending more money on bombs and tanks and wars. When all of our institutions are infected with neglect and fall in disrepair, we will only have ourselves to blame. This book is not an antidote for the left or right, it’s an accelerant to move the middle off their collective asses to go do something positive for America.
Get the Kindle Version HERE. Or order your paperback edition HERE.