Trump 52: Now He's The FORMER President! (And Still Impeached Twice)

[47of74]

No GOP Dr. King would not have opposed impeachment

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It's that time of year when Republicans insult our intelligence and Dr. Martin Luther King's memory with nonsensical statements about the civil rights leader. Let them tell it, Dr. King was a supply-side loving, promoter of color-blind “unity," hardly revolutionary at all. Conservatives selectively quote Dr. King as if he wrote greeting card messages or the lyrics to Bobby McFerrin's “Don't Worry Be Happy."

South Carolina Republican House Rep. Nancy Mace got a head start on the annual hypocrisy when she invoked Dr. King as part of her BS rationale for not voting to impeach Donald Trump.

Dr. Martin Luther King once said, "The time is always right to do what is right." And if we're serious about healing the divisions in this country, Republicans and Democrats need to acknowledge this is not the first day of violence we've seen.

This is what happens when a white woman buys a MLK Quote of the Day calendar. The Capitol hasn't been attacked since 1814, but Mace compared some stupid kid burning a CVS to Trump's attempted insurrection. That's just pathetic. She's awarded no points and may God have mercy on her soul.

 

[AmazonGrace]

https://www.axios.com/trump-election-premeditated-lie-ebaf4a1f-46bf-4c37-ba0d-3ed5536ef537.html

Quote

Episode 1: Trump’s refusal to believe the election results was premeditated. He had heard about the “red mirage” — the likelihood that early vote counts would tip more Republican than the final tallies — and he decided to exploit it.

"Jared, you call the Murdochs! Jason, you call Sammon and Hemmer!”

President Trump was almost shouting. He directed his son-in-law and his senior strategist from his private quarters at the White House late on election night. He barked out the names of top Fox News executives and talent he expected to answer to him.

“And anyone else — anyone else who will take the call," he said. “Tell these guys they got to change it, they got it wrong. It’s way too early. Not even CNN is calling it.”

As the clock ticked over into the first minutes of Nov. 4, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani ranted to top campaign aides: "There's no way he lost; this thing must have been stolen. Just say we won Michigan! Just say we won Georgia! Just say we won the election! He needs to go out and claim victory." Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien later told associates: "That was fucking crazy."

For weeks, Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory on election night — even if he lost. But the real-time results, punctuated by Fox’s shocking call, upended his plans and began his unraveling.

Trump had planned for Americans to go to bed on Nov. 3 celebrating — or resigned to — his re-election. The maps they saw on TV should be bathed in red. But at 11:20 p.m. that vision fell apart, as the nation’s leading news channel among conservatives became the first outlet to call Arizona for Joe Biden. Inside the White House, Trump's inner circle erupted in horror.

Over the next two months, Trump took the nation down with him as he descended into denial, despair and a reckless revenge streak that fueled a deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol by his backers seeking to overturn the election. This triggered a constitutional crisis and a bipartisan push to impeach Trump on his way out the door, to try to cast him out of American politics for good.

But in four years, Trump had remade the Republican Party in his own image, inspiring and activating tens of millions of Americans who weren’t abandoning him anytime soon. He’d once bragged he could shoot another person on Fifth Avenue and not lose his voters. In reality, many of them had eagerly lined up to commit violence on his behalf.

As Trump prepared for Election Day, he was focused on the so-called red mirage. This was the idea that early vote counts would look better for Republicans than the final tallies because Democrats feared COVID-19 more and would disproportionately cast absentee votes that would take longer to count. Trump intended to exploit this — to weaponize it for his vast base of followers.

His preparations were deliberate, strategic and deeply cynical. Trump wanted Americans to believe a falsehood that there were two elections — a legitimate election composed of in-person voting, and a separate, fraudulent election involving bogus mail-in ballots for Democrats.

In the initial hours after returns closed, it looked like his plan could work. Trump was on track for easy wins in Florida and Ohio, and held huge — though deceptive — early leads in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

But as Bill Hemmer narrated a live "what if" scenario on his election telestrator from Studio F of Fox’s gargantuan Manhattan headquarters, the anchor sounded confused. "What is this happening here? Why is Arizona blue?" he asked on camera, prodding the image of the state on the touch screen, unable to flip its color. "Did we just call it? Did we make a call in Arizona?" Because of a minor communication breakdown, Hemmer's screen had turned Arizona blue before he or the other anchors, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, found out that Fox’s Decision Desk had called it.

Trump was steaming and he wanted to see his top aides immediately. His son-in-law Jared Kushner, chief of staff Mark Meadows, campaign manager Stepien, senior strategist Jason Miller, and data cruncher Matt Oczkowski took the elevator up to the third floor of the residence at the White House. They met Trump and the first lady halfway between his bedroom and the living room at the end of the hall. Trump peppered them with questions. What happened? What the hell is going on at Fox?

Oczkowski told Trump that based on the campaign’s modeling he thought Fox was wrong and “we’re going to narrowly win” by maybe 10,000 votes or less, “razor close.” But the reality was, hundreds of thousands of votes were outstanding in Maricopa County and the picture was too cloudy to be sure. Then Trump told Kushner to call the Murdochs.

The team had been cautiously optimistic that they were watching a repeat of Trump’s poll-defying 2016 victory. In the West Wing, mid-level staffers congregated in the hallways buzzing with nervous excitement and anticipation. At the residence about 200 guests — donors, Cabinet secretaries, White House physician Sean Conley, TV boosters Diamond and Silk, and other VIPs — gathered for the official election night party. They munched on beef sliders. Most did not wear masks.

Giuliani was stationed at a table amid the party, laptop open, watching the results come in, as if he were Command Central. His son, White House official Andrew Giuliani, sat at his right. Trump's tight inner circle — children Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka, plus his long-time adviser Hope Hicks, White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and a few others — gathered separately in the Old Family Dining Room to watch the returns on TV. Trump's core campaign team monitored precinct-level results from down in the Map Room on the ground floor, the same room where FDR had once tracked fighting during World War II.

Trump had spent a bellicose summer and early autumn railing against mail-in ballots. After a toxic Sept. 29 election debate with Biden, Trump's internal poll numbers nose-dived. He started choreographing election night in earnest during the second week of October, as he recovered from COVID-19.

His former chief of staff Reince Priebus told a friend he was stunned when Trump called him around that time and acted out his script, including walking up to a podium and prematurely declaring victory on election night if it looked like he was ahead.

White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller's speechwriting team had prepared three skeleton speeches for election night for all the possible scenarios: a clear victory, a clear loss, and an indeterminate result. But the speechwriters knew that if Trump was facing anything other than a resounding victory, the words would be his alone. This president would never admit defeat or urge patience.

The top officials tried to force Fox to retract its call. Kushner called Rupert Murdoch, who said he would see what was going on. Hicks, a former Fox executive, texted current Fox executive and ex-White House staffer Raj Shah. Hicks also gave Fox News president Jay Wallace's phone number to top Trump campaign officials. The Trump campaign's senior-most officials aggressively texted anchors MacCallum and Baier. Throughout the night, a number of Fox commentators friendly to Trump — including Tucker Carlson — questioned the Arizona call on the air. But the call stood.

Making the situation even more awkward, several high-profile Fox News personalities, including "Judge" Jeanine Pirro, were at the White House while their own network spoiled what was supposed to be a victory party.

It was shortly after 1 a.m. on Nov. 4 when Trump finally came down from his living quarters to the main corridor on the second floor of his private residence. His inner circle met him halfway. This was the first time most of them had seen the president that night. About a dozen aides and relatives huddled around Trump as he dictated an improvised speech. Stephen Miller sat on a couch furiously typing the president's stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Aides rushed to print out screenshots of cable news graphics showing Trump's illusory early leads in the key Midwest states. By 2 a.m., Trump wanted to know why he couldn't just say he had won and be done with it.

The speechwriters sent a draft to Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator, stationed at his laptop in a small room adjoining the East Room. The draft did not include the words that became the most infamous line of his speech: “Frankly, we did win this election.”

At 2:20 a.m., maskless aides and supporters in the East Room held up cellphones to record Trump, the first lady, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife walking out to waiting cameras as "Hail to the Chief" played. Dozens of American flags lined the backdrop behind them.

Trump declared victory — and announced that Democrats were perpetrating a giant fraud on the American people.

Both claims were lies.

 

[Ozlsn]

3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

https://www.axios.com/trump-election-premeditated-lie-ebaf4a1f-46bf-4c37-ba0d-3ed5536ef537.html

While I think using him for disinformation purposes is an option I am hoping that being in prison will solve that problem.

[SPHASH]

Once Biden has been sworn in I really hope London and Paris set off fireworks and ring church bells.

Edited January 17, 2021 by SPHASH

[Xan]

As much as I would love to see Trump end up in prison, I just don't think it will happen.  The Republicans are very aware of the optics of all this and still want to curry favor with the crazy base.  I'm not sure what kind of backroom deals might be made or favors exchanged.  Maybe they'll just encourage him to move to another country.  The sight of Trump in a prison jumpsuit might be a bridge too far for the conservatives -- as much as they're trying to distance themselves from him now.

That being said, he's certainly committed enough crimes to be in prison.  Frankly, if they still executed people for treason, that would be an option.  Junior, Eric, Jared, and Ivanka ought to be in prison with him.  Ditto for Pompeo, Giuliani, Miller, Flynn, Roger Stone, Linn Wood,, Sidney Powell, and at least 20 other nincompoops who have propped him up in the White House.  Hawley and Cruz need to be run out of the Senate.  There are countless congresscritters who ought to be drummed out of the House of Representatives.  Sedition is a real thing.  

I remember Nixon and his rehabilitated statesman act.  I also remember the people who took the fall for Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal (and there were others).  Neither president ended up in the slammer.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

43 minutes ago, Xan said:

As much as I would love to see Trump end up in prison, I just don't think it will happen.  The Republicans are very aware of the optics of all this and still want to curry favor with the crazy base.  I'm not sure what kind of backroom deals might be made or favors exchanged.  Maybe they'll just encourage him to move to another country.  The sight of Trump in a prison jumpsuit might be a bridge too far for the conservatives -- as much as they're trying to distance themselves from him now.

That being said, he's certainly committed enough crimes to be in prison.  Frankly, if they still executed people for treason, that would be an option.  Junior, Eric, Jared, and Ivanka ought to be in prison with him.  Ditto for Pompeo, Giuliani, Miller, Flynn, Roger Stone, Linn Wood,, Sidney Powell, and at least 20 other nincompoops who have propped him up in the White House.  Hawley and Cruz need to be run out of the Senate.  There are countless congresscritters who ought to be drummed out of the House of Representatives.  Sedition is a real thing.  

I remember Nixon and his rehabilitated statesman act.  I also remember the people who took the fall for Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal (and there were others).  Neither president ended up in the slammer.

I agree totally.  AS much as it would restore some of my faith in humanity if he were held accountable I don't believe he will be.

Too many people on his side, and those who aren't many will cave into calls for forgiveness as the high ground.  It's not, it's capitulation and sets a dangerous precedent, but they'll cloak it in those terms and move on.

I hope I'm wrong, but i don't think Trump will suffer financial hardships either.  He'll find a way to wiggle out or delay so long he runs out the clock on his lifetime or remnants of mental capacity to stand trial.

I think he and his family will weasel out of anything besides a slap on the wrist.  I really, truly, hope I'm wrong.

Btw @Xan in case I never told you how much I love your posts...i really love your posts.

Edited January 17, 2021 by HerNameIsBuffy

[JordynDarby5]

5 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I agree totally.  AS much as it would restore some of my faith in humanity if he were held accountable I don't believe he will be.

Too many people on his side, and those who aren't many will cave into calls for forgiveness as the high ground.  It's not, it's capitulation and sets a dangerous precedent, but they'll cloak it in those terms and move on.

I hope I'm wrong, but i don't think Trump will suffer financial hardships either.  He'll find a way to wiggle out or delay so long he runs out the clock on his lifetime or remnants of mental capacity to stand trial.

I think he and his family will weasel out of anything besides a slap on the wrist.  I really, truly, hope I'm wrong.

So do I. I really, really want to be wrong and see Trump and the rest of his family thrown in jail for their many, many crimes. But they've weaseled out of every single one of them before. That and its so very rare for a rich white man to be convicted and serve jail time for crimes he committed. They should and it should be easy to send them to jail there's so much evidence of their crimes. But I don't think it'll happen. Somehow they'll weasel out of every single one.  

[AmazonGrace]

If they get prosecuted the problem is finding a jury without any of those delusional fans who will drink bleach if Trump tells them it's good for the skin.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

Sadly I think the only real consequences for Trump is losing the election and being embarrassed by his crowds for looking so "low class" at the insurrection.

Which...had he taken a gander at the crowds for his rallies?  Was he expecting people who share a designer with Kate Middleton to be storming the capitol?  

The people he'd love to see representing him don't throw Molotov cocktails.  They may fund others doing so, but from the comfort of their protected enclaves.  Just like him.

(He's not capable of shame, but he is of embarrassment and his angst over this, as well as the insult to his moron cabal amuses me.)

Edited January 17, 2021 by HerNameIsBuffy

[onekidanddone]

30 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

If they get prosecuted the problem is finding a jury without any of those delusional fans who will drink bleach if Trump tells them it's good for the skin.

Finding a jury wouldn't' love to be the one to slam the door on his cell would also be a problem. If I was called if asked if I could be impartial, my response "OH FUCK NO.  Lock President Treason"

[church_of_dog]

4 hours ago, Xan said:

As much as I would love to see Trump end up in prison, I just don't think it will happen.  The Republicans are very aware of the optics of all this and still want to curry favor with the crazy base.  I'm not sure what kind of backroom deals might be made or favors exchanged.  Maybe they'll just encourage him to move to another country.  The sight of Trump in a prison jumpsuit might be a bridge too far for the conservatives -- as much as they're trying to distance themselves from him now.

That being said, he's certainly committed enough crimes to be in prison.  Frankly, if they still executed people for treason, that would be an option.  Junior, Eric, Jared, and Ivanka ought to be in prison with him.  Ditto for Pompeo, Giuliani, Miller, Flynn, Roger Stone, Linn Wood,, Sidney Powell, and at least 20 other nincompoops who have propped him up in the White House.  Hawley and Cruz need to be run out of the Senate.  There are countless congresscritters who ought to be drummed out of the House of Representatives.  Sedition is a real thing.  

I remember Nixon and his rehabilitated statesman act.  I also remember the people who took the fall for Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal (and there were others).  Neither president ended up in the slammer.

I agree he might not see actual prison time.  

However, unlike Reagan or Nixon (at least I presume), Trump will, guaranteed, continue to commit crimes.   So I find myself hoping that after he gets whatever sweetheart slap-on-wrist deal he gets, he then, say, a year or two later, finds himself being freshly prosecuted for new offenses -- financial, sexual, whatever -- there will probably be many to choose from.  In whatever country he has taken up residence if not the US.

[GreyhoundFan]

On 1/16/2021 at 11:11 AM, AmazonGrace said:

Can you get lead poisoning from that glass? 

Most of his supporters act like they ingested copious amount of lead paint chips as children, so they probably wouldn't notice a difference.

[Jana814]

9 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Most of his supporters act like they ingested copious amount of lead paint chips as children, so they probably wouldn't notice a difference.

Love this description of Trump supports.  

[47of74]

On 1/15/2021 at 11:35 AM, Ticklish said:

I know you were joking, but for real, I loathed George W but there have been so many times in the last 4 years that I've thought "I'd take him back over what we have now". 

Yeah I was and still am not a fan of Shrub but even at his worst he was never as bad as fuck face.  Even if Shrub had made use of Twitter he probably wouldn't have started WW3 or incited Civil War II with it.  (Twitter started in 2006 but I didn't know about it til about July and started my account then).    

Karl doesn't think hiring Rudy is a good idea.

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Fox News contributor Karl Rove lamented on Sunday that if Rudy Giuliani leads President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense in the Senate, there is a “strong likelihood” the president will be convicted.

With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly open to the idea of convicting the president for incitement, Rove said Giuliani’s defense strategy would cause a lot of GOP lawmakers to jump on board the impeachment train.

“Rudy Giuliani charted a very bad course for the president in the morning papers when he suggested that the argument was going to be, ‘Well, there couldn’t have been incitement because all the charges of widespread voter fraud are true,’” Rove sighed. “Well, those charges and the so-called experts that the campaign has mustered to advocate them have been rejected by over 50 courts, with judges appointed by President Trump, President Obama, President Bush, President Clinton, and I think even one Reagan justice.”

“If it’s the Rudy Giuliani defense, there’s a strong likelihood that more than 17 Republicans will, because essentially that argument is: ‘This was justified, the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to end the congressional hearing on certifying the election was justified because all these charges are true.’ And frankly, they aren’t,” he added.

Hey Karl, to quote Napoleon Bonaparte, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."  If it gets fuck face impeached I'm all for said fuck face hiring Rudy.

[Ozlsn]

7 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Fox News contributor Karl Rove lamented on Sunday that if Rudy Giuliani leads President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense in the Senate, there is a “strong likelihood” the president will be convicted.

Never thought I'd say this, but...

Go Rudy! Go Rudy!

[AmazonGrace]

Sadly Rudy can't help defend and convict Trump because he is a witness (suspect?) in the case. 

[SassyPants]

I would rather Trump and family lose everything and have to live like 99.99% of others in this world, and certainly all the people that they have screwed over, than do jail time. 

[AmazonGrace]

Morning Joe joins the list of people who consider suing Trump:

https://news.yahoo.com/joe-scarborough-says-might-sue-204930993.html

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Attorney Roberta Kaplan is about to make Trump’s life extremely difficult"

Quote

On the other side of Donald Trump’s turbulent presidency, the lawyers are waiting.

Leaving aside his Senate impeachment trial, mounting government investigations include a civil probe by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a criminal probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., and a federal probe by acting U.S. Attorney for D.C. Michael Sherwin that may include Trump’s role in the catastrophic storming of the U.S. Capitol this month.

But already pending for the soon-to-be South Florida retiree is a trio of lawsuits that allege defamation, fraud and more fraud — all of which are helmed by one attorney.

Roberta Kaplan’s clients include writer E. Jean Carroll, who filed a defamation case after Trump claimed she was “totally lying” about her allegation that he raped her a quarter-century ago in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room, and niece Mary L. Trump, who claims that Trump and two of his siblings deprived her of an inheritance worth millions.

“I became the go-to person to sue the president,” says Kaplan, 54, with considerable relish.

She is in many ways the ideal legal adversary to take on Trump. Kaplan is a brash and original strategist, with neither a gift for patience nor silence, a crusader for underdogs who has won almost every legal accolade imaginable. Kaplan, says New York Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in an email, “has been indispensable in the fight against the cancer of hate and division that Trump spent four years exacerbating.”

Before the presidency, Trump was often as engaged in legal tussles as he was in real estate, suing and threatening to sue his way out of financial trouble. With a return to private life, “his terror is that he will no longer be protected by the office and will have to deal with these lawsuits,” says his niece. Trump faces the prospect of spending considerable time in the role of defendant. Kaplan says she will seek to depose him in all three cases. Trump’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment on the cases in this story.

For much of her career, there was little in Kaplan’s professional bio to suggest she would become an attorney suing behemoths. Kaplan, known to all as Robbie, is a self-described “traditionalist,” in pearls, pumps and, pre-coronavirus, superior blond highlights, who long worked as a top commercial litigator at Paul, Weiss, one of the nation’s preeminent firms, where the fees tend to be if-you-have-to-ask-you-surely-can’t-afford-us.

But she became increasingly identified as an advocate for liberal causes and outside-the-box legal strategies. She is a lesbian, an observant Jew and a die-hard Democrat for whom 12 hours constitutes a light work day.

“My maternal grandmother always hated a bully,” Kaplan says during a series of phone interviews. “One really good job for going after bullies is to be a lawyer.”

Since launching her own firm four years ago, Kaplan has initiated a constellation of cases against powerful, often intimidating forces: white supremacists, major Hollywood players, the president of the United States. Legal writer Dahlia Lithwick calls her “an attorney general for the resistance.”

Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan says of their frequent legal conversations: “Robbie’s not calling about feelings. She wants to fix it first. She’s the least diffident person I’ve ever met. Plenty of smart people worry about failing. They worry about every little thing. Robbie doesn’t worry about that. In a really disarming way, she doesn’t care if people view her as hyperaggressive.”

In Kaplan’s third Trump case, she represents participants in ACN, a multilevel marketing company promoted on “The Celebrity Apprentice.” They’re suing not ACN, but the former host and his three oldest children, accusing them of endorsing the company as a promising business opportunity.

While Trump billed himself as a populist, Kaplan perceived a consistent disconnect in how Trump University and other enterprises allegedly took advantage of the very people whose interests he claimed to champion.

“Because of his prominence, he marketed his ability to convince unsophisticated, very poor Americans to invest,” says Kaplan, who was indignant that Trump “would exploit people like this to line your own pockets.”

(In a Business Insider story, a Trump organization spokesperson responded to the suit by saying, “Before enrolling with ACN, every participant acknowledged in writing that they are ‘not guaranteed any income.’ ” In that story, ACN co-founder Robert Stevanovski claimed the plaintiffs were told that Trump was getting paid to endorse the company. “I think it’s politically motivated that they’re going to sue him and the family and not us,” he said.)

Kaplan remains most celebrated for the Edie Windsor case that, in 2013, successfully struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, paving the way with stunning alacrity for the legalization of same-sex marriage two years later to the day.

Among Kaplan’s strategic moves — “I don’t know where I found the chutzpah to do this” — was to help coax Bill Clinton to publish a Washington Post opinion piece renouncing his 1996 support of DOMA before she appeared before the nation’s highest court. United States v. Windsor remains the only U.S. Supreme Court case that she has ever argued.

“A little girl with a big mouth.” That’s how Kaplan’s grandmother described her, meant with affection. Growing up in Cleveland, she was a rigorous student who designed a plan. Head East to a top school (Harvard), train as a lawyer (Columbia), become a New Yorker.

Five years ago, that plan expanded to landing a top Justice Department position in Hillary Clinton’s administration.

So, no.

Instead, in the summer of 2017, Kaplan launched her own boutique firm, still a rarity among female corporate lawyers, creating an unusual model that combines lucrative commercial litigation with a progressive public-interest practice. Free from the agendas of risk-averse institutional clients, Kaplan and her colleagues became free to take on any case they believed had merit.

One week after the firm moved into its 71st-floor offices of the Empire State Building, the furniture yet to arrive, Charlottesville erupted.

Believing that Trump’s Justice Department seemed unlikely to seriously investigate and prosecute the people responsible for the violence during the “Unite the Right” rally — he infamously claimed there “were very fine people, on both sides” — Kaplan announced, and this was her precise language to friends and colleagues: “I want to sue Nazis.”

Because, why not?

Within days, Kaplan and her team flew to Virginia. The firm adopted an outside-the-box approach and sued two dozen avowed neo-Nazis, white supremacists and associated groups, invoking the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act to argue that they conspired for months to commit racially motivated violence, thereby making it more of a challenge for the organizers to adopt free speech as a defense. The case is scheduled for trial in October.

In the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct revelations, Kaplan co-founded the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which offers financial assistance for plaintiffs filing harassment cases, and now serves as chairwoman of the Time’s Up organization. Many women who say they have been sexually harassed or assaulted have come to her. The actress Amber Heard sought Kaplan’s representation in ex-husband Johnny Depp’s $50 million case involving a 2018 Washington Post opinion piece by Heard; he alleges she defamed him by implying that he domestically abused her. (The op-ed does not explicitly name him.) In the complaint, the actor denies any abuse took place.

Heard says of Kaplan, “I’m instantly drawn to the type of individual who can look upon the Goliath and say ‘I think I can take you.’ That kind of energy and temerity is rare in the world, especially in the legal world.”

Suing the powerful has brought repeated threats. Kaplan has an apartment in Manhattan but requested that her country home’s location, where she has spent the pandemic working, go unnamed.

Kaplan says the greatest abuse she’s received on social media has come not from neo-Nazis, white supremacists or Trump’s true believers, but from Depp’s vehement online champions.

A hallmark of Kaplan Hecker & Fink is crafting complaints in layman’s language that pack a wallop. The Mary Trump brief is a doozy. “For Donald J. Trump, his sister Maryanne, and their late brother Robert, fraud was not just the family business — it was a way of life,” the complaint begins, before alleging three duplicitous schemes, “The Grift,” “The Devaluing” and “The Squeeze-Out.”

Says Mary Trump, “That brief is literature.”

The president’s lawyers, in an effort to have the case tossed, claimed that the complaint is “laden with conspiracy theories.”

When Carroll first met with Kaplan, the lawyer quickly understood her client’s objective. “I don’t give two flying figs about an apology,” Carroll says. “I am dying to get him in a deposition. I want him to say that I’m not a liar. I just want him to admit that he lied and that, yes, it happened.”

The last few years of Kaplan’s professional life, with her firm swelling from four to 43 elite lawyers, are inextricably intertwined with Trump. Without his election, Kaplan may not have launched her own firm as quickly or filed three lawsuits against him.

“I’m ready. I’m excited,” says Kaplan. In the Carroll case, Kaplan believes that Trump’s proclivity for false and misleading statements, with more than 30,000 of them during his White House term, according to The Post, will be tested when he is under oath. During a 2007 Trump deposition, lawyers caught him making exaggerated claims 30 times, according to a 2016 Post investigation.

“When we depose you, you’re not going to get away with that,” Kaplan says. “He had the mantle of the presidency, and that’s now gone.”

Kaplan is celebrated for her candor. She’s active in LGBTQ causes, recently serving as the board chair of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. She rhapsodizes about her “big gay Jewish wedding” in 2005 to Rachel Lavine, a liberal activist who serves on New York’s Democratic committee.

Yet Kaplan remained in the closet until law school graduation.

“Robbie is one of the most conventional radicals you’ll ever meet,” Lithwick says.

In 1991, Kaplan came out to her parents at age 25. It did not go well. Her mother walked up to a wall and began banging her head, repeatedly, in dismay. “Which she has apologized for over and over again,” Kaplan says. The family remains close.

Kaplan experienced a rare episode of depression, which led her to consult a therapist named Thea Spyer, who referenced her lesbian relationship in an effort to comfort Kaplan — and whose death in 2009 left a punitive estate tax bill to her partner, Edie Windsor, because their marriage wasn’t legally recognized, sparking the Supreme Court case that helped define Kaplan’s career.

Why did such an outspoken person hide her true identity for so long?

“I’d never been a burn-down-the-ramparts sort of person. I believed in working in institutions,” says Kaplan. “Living a life very much on the margins didn’t appeal to me. I really wanted to have kids. I really wanted to be part of the Jewish community. I really wanted to have a career. All of this would have been unavailable in the world I grew up in.”

She has all of that — the marriage, a son (Jacob, now 14), a goldendoodle. On Sunday mornings, she participates in a Talmud discussion group with her rabbi and Lithwick.

“Also, I knew when I met Rachel there was no way I was going to be able to be in the closet and be with Rachel,” Kaplan says. “Those two things were completely incompatible.” Everyone in the New York gay rights movement knew Lavine. Politics, civic engagement and intellectual rigor were part of the attraction. On an early date in a romantic Chelsea bistro, the two argued at length over the comparative power of the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks during the Russian Revolution.

Although known for her fresh legal arguments, Kaplan was comfortable working in a large firm. She seemed unlikely to go out on her own. In many ways, it’s the boldest professional move she’s made.

“What makes a good litigator and lawyer is being a pessimist and risk averse because you need to be looking at problems around the next corner,” says Karlan, who helped prepare Kaplan for the Supreme Court argument. “Robbie has been as successful as she is because she doesn’t appear to be that kind of thinker. She’s an optimist.”

The firm’s high-profile cases have attracted top legal talent, like Joshua Matz, who briefly left the firm last year to help the House Judiciary Committee draft articles of impeachment.

“We’ve learned that in presenting options to Robbie, she will presumptively favor the most aggressive option,” Matz says. “She is jaw-droppingly strategic and savvy on the one hand, and extremely bold on the other.”

It’s also a menschy practice. “What’s unusual is the sheer amount of contact she has with her clients,” Karlan says. Kaplan celebrated Passover with Windsor, who died in 2017. She’s available at all hours for phone consultations. Gifts of food are constant. She sent Heard a box of chicken soup, lox and bagels.

Citing logistical challenges that were better served by local counsel, Kaplan’s firm no longer represents Heard in the defamation case that is scheduled for trial in May.

Yet Kaplan continues to offer Heard legal advice on the case and other legal matters. They speak regularly, sometimes daily. “She is the bravest lawyer I have ever met. She doesn’t get intimidated or scare easily,” Heard says. “The well-behaved woman never interested me. There’s a rebellious part of Robbie. I think of her as my Jewish mother.”

Kaplan’s close friend Sharon Nelles, head of litigation at Sullivan & Cromwell, says: “If you can come at the world the way she does, you are not reined in by whether there are social constructs or boundaries. You can create your own mold. Lawyers for the most part react. Robbie acts.”

Nelles recalls a time when Kaplan called to consult on a case. “She’s yapping at me on the phone and then lets out a little screech.”

Nelles asked what was wrong. “Oh, I’m having a medical procedure,” Kaplan said. “Let me call you back when I get off the doctor’s table.”

Mary Trump hired Kaplan to sue President Trump, his sister Maryanne Trump Barry and the estate of his late brother Robert Trump “because I want justice for my daughter, and for me, and for my dad. If Donald Trump is not going to be held accountable for other things, he needs to be held accountable for this,” she says, adding: “Maybe that will start the dominoes to fall. Maybe other people will feel that they, too, have options and will come forward.” Kaplan’s firm regularly fields inquiries from potential clients who wish to sue Trump.

Carroll cannot wait for her day in court with Trump. She’s already picked out her outfit. Black. Armani.

She also views her lawsuit as symbolic, saying, “It’s for all the women in the country who have been harassed or assaulted by powerful men, and feel helpless to do anything about it.”

So Carroll’s doing something about it.

“I don’t have to be brave,” she says. “Because Robbie Kaplan is brave for me.”

 

[47of74]

Fuck face is not getting a send off ceremony from the Pentagon.

Quote

Defense One reports that the Pentagon confirms the military will not hold a farewell ceremony for President Donald Trump, as it has for past presidents.

The outlet, which focuses on national security issues, broke the news that Trump won’t be getting the traditional sendoff in a scathing commentary by Executive Editor Kevin Baron:

The Pentagon, in a break with recent tradition, will not host an Armed Forces Farewell tribute to President Donald Trump.

Trump is reportedly considering throwing himself a farewell ceremony that would include military flourishes like a 21-gun salute.

 

[AmazonGrace]

About how his bromance with Barr ended https://www.axios.com/off-the-rails-episodes-cf6da824-83ac-45a6-a33c-ed8b00094e39.html

The episode 2 is Barbarians at the oval and 3 is Descent into Madness. About the cavalcade of conspiracy clowns at the White House.

Marjorie Taylor-Greene is mad at Twitter for getting suspended so they have a lot in common.

[AmazonGrace]

Please please please, bring all your friends so Trump will think it's a big crowd.

[AmazonGrace]

It remains to be seen I guess.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

Please please please, bring all your friends so Trump will think it's a big crowd.

No way he is getting there that early. Those foolish souls are going to be standing there for a very long time