I have my issues with The Lincoln Project, especially whenever their dealings with lawyers are involved. Not to mention their dealings with teenagers. But Rick Wilson absolutely nailed it with four simple words:
As the former President settles into a comfortable, if social-media-deprived retirement - honestly, it’s probably a comfortable retirement because he can’t use social media anymore - many of the people who put their professional livelihoods and reputations on the line for him aren’t faring so well:
…In the three months since the election was called for Joe Biden, most of the lawyers and MAGA enthusiasts who decided to play a consequential role in the ex-president’s efforts to overturn the Democratic nominee’s 2020 win (efforts that led directly to the Jan. 6 mob violence), have had their jobs or businesses shredded, their personal lives shaken, or their reputations irrevocably tarnished—all while Trump’s been relaxing and playing his rounds of golf in the Sunshine State.
The ones who helped spearhead the most extreme chapters in the broader crusade to nullify the election outcome are now besieged by their own legal battles. Several of them have complained that friends aren’t talking to them anymore, or have huffed and fumed over Twitter banning them for life for spreading dangerous misinformation. Several of the Trump-allied attorneys are just trying to hold onto their law licenses, under calls for disbarment for their participation on the Team Trump efforts.Only two of these people responded to requests for comment on this story.
Much of their current ruin came as a direct result of their decisions to become major players in Trump’s failed authoritarian endeavor to cling to power. All of them have refused to admit that Trump, in fact, lost fair and square. Of this band of MAGA allies (which most prominently included people like Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, Jenna Ellis, Cleta Mitchell, John Eastman, and Peter Navarro), arguably none of them has lost more in the time since the election than Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and personal friend of the ex-president’s.
As far as I can tell, Powell, Wood, Lindell and Giuliani all believed wholeheartedly in what they were doing. I have more scorn for the ones whom I believe actually knew better but went along with it their own purposes:
Other lawyers who worked for Trump during the disastrous presidential transition weren’t so lucky, having been used and discarded by the former president’s political operation, and today left without their other jobs.
Early last month, The Washington Post first revealed that Cleta Mitchell was intimately involved with Trump’s scandalous pressure campaign to overturn Biden’s victory in Georgia. She had, mostly under the radar, risen to become Team Trump’s point person in the state, and was on the now-infamous conference call between the Republican president and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Over many years, Mitchell had earned a reputation as one of the conservative legal universe’s heaviest hitters, and a top-tier campaign finance attorney for right-leaning activists and political candidates. She was a true star in the field. But when her involvement in Trump’s efforts were revealed in January, her high-powered law firm, Foley & Lardner LLP, released a statement claiming it was unaware of the extent of Mitchell’s pro-Trump activity, and said the firm was “concerned” and probing the matter. Shortly thereafter, Mitchell was out of the job.
In December, John Eastman represented Trump before the U.S. Supreme Court when few others—even longtime Trump attorneys—would do so. On the then-president’s behalf, Eastman—a Chapman University law professor who became an outrage-magnet during the 2020 election for openly questioning Sen. Kamala Harris’s citizenship and therefore eligibility to serve as Biden’s running mate—asked the Supreme Court to allow Trump to intervene in a Texas suit that sought to cancel Biden’s victory in four key states.
This legal maneuver, predictably, went nowhere fast. For his time and service, Eastman was rewarded by Trump by having his name floated as a possible member of his legal team for the second Senate trial. Eastman also got a prime speaking slot at the D.C. rally that preceded the bloody riot on Capitol Hill. However, Eastman and Giuliani were soon barred from working on the team, with several top Trump advisers fearing the pair wasn’t serious enough and that they carried too much riot-related baggage with them.
The week after the rioting, Eastman was forced to resign from Chapman, following mounting pressure on the university’s leadership. The separation was acrimonious enough that both Eastman and the university had to pledge not to sue one another. “Chapman and Dr. Eastman have agreed not to engage in legal actions of any kind, including any claim of defamation that may currently exist, as both parties move forward,” Chapman president Daniele Struppa said in a statement at the time.
I am a forgiving person by nature, so I don’t believe working for Trump is an unforgivable offence. People should be given an on-ramp back into polite society if they sincerely repent for what they’ve done.
But these guys can’t say they weren’t warned.
At least one Trump hanger-on, the second-most famous former Governor of Arkansas, has found a potentially lucrative new gig.
Tina Nguyen of Politico spent an entire day watching OANN - may God have mercy on her soul - and saw an ad that should put your complaints about this past weekend’s Super Bowl commercials in perspective. (Not that we Canadians got to see them, thank you CRTC and Bell Media.)
…One commercial encouraged viewers to purchase a set of illustrated picture books for their children—The Kids’ Guide to Donald Trump, Celebrate Our Liberty, and a link for a free video lesson called “Great Again.”
On an iPad, the app showed a picture of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington administering the Oath of Office to Trump. “To learn more and order the Kids’ Guide to President Trump gift bundle, just go to FreeTrumpGuide.com,” said the cheerful narrator, directing me straight to a website featuring its author — Mike Huckabee, of all people — and reviews from parents like “Sandy D.” from Orlando, Fla.:
"I ordered this for my daughter who's in the fifth grade. She studied the Trump presidency in school, but her lessons were biased like the media. The Kids Guides and video lessons are great!”
Presented without further comment’s:
If you can tell me how this is possible and how the driver survived, let me know, because I have no idea:
That driver? I guess there is such a thing as luck. Incredible luck. What, did he land on a cushy semi...? or was he driving something that crumpled around him...?
(Unfortunately the link does not work. :-/)
Cult homeschooling!!! Awesome!!!! NOT. It's bad enough when adults get sucked into this sort of thing. But to be actually brought up in it...it must be nearly inescapable.
I know firsthand what it's like to have those, er, "consensual mutual conversations". Notice how he calls them "men"...at age 14? Subtly shifting facts so that it's "not really lying" in their own mind makes some such people into very believable liars, which is part of how they can get away with it for as long as many do.
Women, fortunately, may have it slightly easier than guys to find someone to start talking and somehow processing the past after abuse. But to have it happen to you as a minor AND as a male...having personally known at least two guys who were sexually abused in childhood...there often seems to be no recovery from that. You stand there trying to help, to be available, but they seemed to go to total self-destruct far more readily than the girls I've known. It doesn't help that society promotes the idea of men being "stronger". Really? Not when it comes to finding ways to reconnect after a predator destroys their sense of self before it's even had a chance to develop. People who molest or try to molest children should be effectively controlled so that they cannot harm anyone. Surely it's possible to find a humane way of doing that, preferably before they take away another young person's...everything.
I was just reading a different story about that earlier today...and reminded of a movie that anyone interested in the subject and able to face its painful reality should see: Deliver us from Evil, 2006, about an Irish priest who was simply transferred to victimize the next group of boys whenever he drew too much attention...