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Legal experts slam fired pro-Trump Texas lawyer who cited 'Lord of the Rings' in his lawsuit against Biden
January 23, 2021
Law experts and legal observers are having a field day on Twitter with the latest bizarre lawsuit filed by Paul M. Davis, the Texas lawyer ousted from his job after recording himself storming the U.S. Capitol.
The disgraced conservative lawyer has reportedly filed legal documents charging that President Joe Biden is not a legitimate president. According to Law & Crime, Davis insists a federal judge "might be able to appoint a group of 'stewards' from the cabinet of former President Donald Trump to run most of the government from the White House."
<p>However, that is not the most bizarre part of the lawsuit. In the second paragraph of Davis' complaint, it referenced a line from the classic film, "Lord of the Rings" as he insisted, "Gondor has no king."</p><p>A footnote was also included in the complaint to further explain his analogy:</p><p><em>During the course of the epic trilogy, the rightful King of Gondor had abandoned the throne. Since only the rightful king could sit on the throne of Gondor, a steward was appointed to manage Gondor until the return of the King, known as "Aragorn," occurred at the end of the story. This analogy is applicable since there is now in Washington, D.C., a group of individuals calling themselves the President, Vice President, and Congress who have no rightful claim to govern the American People. <br/></em></p><p><em>Accordingly, as set forth in the Proposed Temporary Restraining Order, as a remedy the Court should appoint a group of special masters (the "Stewards") to provide a check the power of the illegitimate President until this Constitutional Crisis can be resolved through a peaceful legal process of a Preliminary Injunction Hearing and a jury trial on the merits.</em></p><p>Davis went on to urge federal judges to "take a stand against tyranny" despite his attempt to promote just that by attempting to overthrow an elected official holding the highest position in the nation. He also offered a number of other analogies to back his arguments. At one point, Davis even alleged that the entire Congress is illegitimate. </p><p>Now, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/22/texas-lawyer-fired-after-capitol-riot-files-ambitious-suit-dissolve-congress-dont-arrest-him/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">legal experts are weighing in with critical remarks about Davis' wild lawsuit</a>. Barry Burden, Elections Research Center director at the University of Wisconsin, explained the main issues he sees with Davis' suit.</p><p>"The suit is illogical and convoluted," Burden said, adding, "It misunderstands the Help America Vote Act altogether and the relationship between the U.S. Constitution, federal laws, and state election law. It is filed far too long after the election to be actionable and in any event is requesting a preposterous remedy of removing every elected federal official from office who was elected in 2020 aside from President Trump. Remarkably, the lawsuit says nothing about how Vice President Pence should be treated."</p><blockquote>The only named plaintiff in a nutso lawsuit brought against literally every lawmaker by Texas lawyer Paul Davis (of… https://t.co/QRTl6sdaA3<br/> — Roger Sollenberger (@Roger Sollenberger)<a href="https://twitter.com/SollenbergerRC/statuses/1352063661142134786" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">1611192071.0</a></blockquote> <p>Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a fellow at the New York University (NYU) School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice, also revealed what she believes will be the outcome of Davis' lawsuit based on the judicial handling of more than five dozen of the Trump campaign's post-election lawsuits. <br/></p><p>"One thing that Americans learned during the post-election litigation is how little patience courts have for absurd legal arguments," Torres-Spelliscy noted, adding, "This legal effort to declare Congress illegitimate will be laughed out of court and could lead to sanctions for the lawyer bringing such a claim."</p>
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In an interview to be broadcast this Sunday, Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the key figures on Donald Trump's task force devoted to fighting COVID-19 admitted it was always on her mind to quit but she stuck around because the country needed her.
Speaking to CBS, she claimed, " "I had to ask myself every morning: is there something that I think I can do that would be helpful in responding to this pandemic? And it's something I asked myself every night."
"And when it became a point where I wasn't getting anywhere and that was like right before the election, I wrote a very detailed communication plan of what needed to happen the day after the election and how that needed to be executed. And there was a lot of promise that that would happen," she added.
You can watch the clip below:
<p><br/></p><p><br/></p>
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="11733bebf924d9809ec0075d307797ed" id="d4ab4"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1352745560705540097"><div style="margin:1em 0">WATCH: @margbrennan: "Did you ever consider quitting?"
Birx: "Always...I had to ask myself every morning: is there… https://t.co/9XTLOXMz8T</div> — Face The Nation (@Face The Nation)<a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/statuses/1352745560705540097">1611354649.0</a></blockquote></div>
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Donald Trump — now the former president of the United States — was and is many things. An authoritarian and fascist and a demagogue. An abusive parent or spouse, on a societal scale, who delights in tormenting the American people. A destroyer. A person who encourages the worst of human behavior. Pathological. An apparent sociopath or psychopath. Evil, corrupt and enraptured with violence. A white supremacist. The worst president in American history. A traitor.
This article first appeared in Salon.
<p>The American people held their breath in fear and anticipation of the horrible things that would — and did — <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/21/norm-ornstein-on-the-capitol-carnage-the-biden-presidency-and-trumps-impeachment/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">come to pass in the final days of Trump's regime</a>. When <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/21/celebrations-as-worst-and-most-dangerous-president-in-american-history-departs-white-house_partner/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Joe Biden became president of the United States at 12 noon on Wednesday, they could finally let out a sigh of relief</a>. </p><p>While many in the news media have celebrated Joe Biden's election, and now presidency, as averting or reversing catastrophe, that is not in fact true. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/17/historys-bunk--but-it-still-rhymes-from-the-bastille-to-the-winter-palace-to-the-capitol/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a> inflicted numerous catastrophes on the United States: ramped-up authoritarianism, fascism and overt white supremacy; a coup attempt; a lethal plague; <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/09/11/ptsd-expert-seth-norrholm-americans-are-being-psychologically-abused-by-donald-trump/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">collective post-traumatic disorder</a>; economic ruin. </p><p>Here's a more apt description of what Biden's presidency means for the country is as follows: <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/22/the-shock-and-awe-of-donald-trumps-final-days/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">If Donald Trump had won a second term</a>, American democracy would have suffered an extinction-level event. Such is the enormous challenge facing the new administration.</p><p>Biden's inauguration speech showed that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/21/president-joe-biden-offers-us-reasons-for-hope-at-last--but-hope-can-be-hazardous/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">he may in fact be more than a transitional president</a> whose job is to tend a broken democracy, government and country by doing the bare minimum, and leaving it all somewhat better than he found it. </p><p>Considering the challenges the United States faces from its many self-inflicted wounds, a "return to normal" may actually be an accomplishment in itself.</p><p>Biden's inauguration speech was Lincoln-esque. It was a kind of sermon reflecting on American democracy in the aftermath of the coup attempt by Trump's supporters — a democracy that needs to be healed, renewed and energized. Biden deftly took Trump's "Make America Great Again" and rejected the ugly energy and intent of that language while reworking it into something aspirational, inspirational and inclusive. Jazz is one of America's gifts to the world. In that moment and others during his inauguration speech, Joe Biden was improvising, playing around the melody. </p><p>Biden's notes were the challenges and opportunities of American history and life; a country with the capacity to regain its greatness but now lost and uncertain; a political community that is broken, but whose people have more in common than what divides them; the urge to create a new and better country while escaping the pull of those anchors from the worst parts of its past, weights that now threaten to drown us all.</p><p>On Twitter, political consultant and author David Rothkopf (whom I interviewed in November) offered an excellent summation of Biden's inaugural address as "the delicate balancing act of elevating, inspiring, calling for unity, & saying the era of Donald Trump is over. For every high ideal, there was a counterpoint to Trump. It was a beautifully balanced, positive speech, full of truth, well-delivered."</p><p>Whatever one may think of Biden as a politician, he has shown himself to be a decent and honorable man. As the successor to a president who had no such qualities, Biden's humanity is one of his greatest strengths. This is especially true for a country and a people who are mired in death and loss, not just literally in the form of lives lost and ruined, but also in that Trumpism has rendered the United States almost into an undead country, unsure and lost, whose stories and myths about its own greatness and inherent goodness have been exposed as lies. </p><p>But Biden's humanity and fundamental decency and generosity of spirit could also prove to be his greatest weakness.</p><p>The central theme of the president's inaugural address was unity: He wants to reunite the tens of millions of Trump's political cult members with the rest of normal society. </p><p>To accomplish this goal, Biden is asking good Americans — those who believe in democracy — to reach out to Trump's followers and other Republicans, a group of people who have repeatedly shown that they reject multiracial democracy and embrace authoritarianism and fascism.</p><p>In essence, Biden is asking his voters and other supporters to do the emotional, moral and physical labor of reaching out to the worst elements of America, those <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/01/11/america-the-undead-trumps-mob-attacked-a-democracy-already-weakened-by-his-war-on-reality/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">who have exiled themselves into the alternate reality of TrumpWorld and the broader right-wing echo chamber.</a> Biden's approach rewards bad behavior and does not force a new maturity or wisdom onto Trumpists, Republicans and other unrepentant elements of the right. Ultimately, such an approach all but ensures that the White Right will become even more radical and dangerous.</p><p><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/bidens-goal-of-unity-requires-a-defense-of-democracy-first" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">In a new essay for the Daily Beast</a>, Rothkopf put that threat in its historical context:</p> <blockquote> But there is a much bigger issue at play here. This is not just about Trump's upcoming Senate [impeachment] trial. Unless leaders from both parties work to make defending democracy a joint priority then we soon again will be at risk. Indeed, if we falter, history suggests we will be following in the footsteps of other democracies that dismissed or minimized threats and soon succumbed to dictators. Not adequately responding to the threats of would-be authoritarians because those behind them seem unworthy, disorganized, or ignorant — or because it is politically hard or uncomfortable — is a dangerous error. Hitler's Beer Hall putsch of 1923 was a failure too. It was mocked. Ten years later Hitler took power, and the result was the worst calamity in the history of the world.<br/> </blockquote> <p>Moreover, public opinion polls and other research show that a majority of Republicans do not believe that Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. Almost 50 percent of registered Republicans <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/news/533171-poll-majority-of-republicans-blame-biden-for-mob-storming-the-capitol" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">supported the Trump-inspired attack</a> on the Capitol. Many Republicans also <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/poll-majority-blame-trump-jan-150952235.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">believe that Donald Trump is innocent</a>, despite the obvious evidence that he incited insurrection and violence. Other research shows that Trump's followers, Republicans, and other members of the right are more likely to be authoritarians who reject basic democratic norms. Trump voters are especially hostile to multiracial democracy and prefer to live in an authoritarian society if that will ensure that white people are the dominant and most powerful group.</p><p>Experts on terrorism have warned us that Donald Trump's coup attack, like his entire presidency, will inspire more right-wing extremism and political violence, specifically targeting the Biden administration and the Democrats.</p><p>In a <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/attack-on-us-capitol-was-the-beginning-of-an-american-insurgency-counterterrorism-experts-warn-100000381.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">recent article for Yahoo News</a>, retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, one of the world's leading experts on counter-insurgency warfare and the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, issued this warning:</p> <blockquote> So even if Trump exits the scene, the radical movement he helped create has its own momentum and cohesion now, and they may find they don't need Trump anymore. They can just wait for another charismatic leader to appear. So the fabric of something very dangerous has been woven, and it's further along than most Americans care to admit.<br/> </blockquote> <p>In <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/seditionists-need-path-back-society/617746/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Anne Applebaum's new essay for The Atlantic</a>, "Coexistence Is the Only Option," she offers a similar warning about a post-Trump America:</p> <blockquote> We could also see more violence. Since the election, the Bridging Divides Initiative, a group that tracks and counters political violence in the U.S., has observed a singularly ominous metric: a sharp uptick in the number of protests outside the homes of politicians and public figures, including city- and county-level officials, many featuring "armed and unlawful paramilitary actors." In Idaho, aggressive protesters shut down a public-health meeting; in Northern California, numerous public-health officials have resigned in the face of threats from anti-maskers. Death threats are already shaping U.S. politics at a higher level too. We may never know how many more Republicans in Congress might have voted for Trump's impeachment last week had it not been for the ominous messages they were receiving online.<br/> </blockquote> <p>Applebaum continues: "Outside politics, outside the law, outside the norms — the seditionists have in fact declared their independence from the rest of us. January 6 was indeed their 1776: They declared that they want to live in a different America from the one the rest of us inhabit, ruled over by a different president chosen according to a different rule book. And yet they cannot be wished away, or sent away, or somehow locked up. They will not leave of their own accord, and Americans who accept Biden's lawful victory won't either. We have no choice except to coexist."</p><p>President Biden has extended the hand of friendship and unity to Trump's followers and other Republicans, and is asking his supporters and other Americans of conscience to do the same thing. Predictably, those overtures are being rejected. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/01/15/biden-begins-presidency-with-positive-ratings-trump-departs-with-lowest-ever-job-mark" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">A new Pew Research poll shows that Republican voters want their leaders to obstruct the Democratic Party's policies</a>. </p><p>Almost on cue, the Republican National Committee sent out this email on Inauguration Day: </p> <blockquote> Friend,<br/>Today begins a new chapter in our Country.<br/>While the Left promises to implement their Big Government Socialist Agenda, the Republican Party will need to come together and work even harder if we're going to continue putting America FIRST.<br/>The Democrats have control of the White House, the Senate, and the House, and our Party will be relying on you now more than ever. YOU are going to play a vital role in our efforts to preserve all of our historic accomplishments over the last four years, and it's critical that we have your support.<br/>We need your help to send a STRONG message to the Left that Patriots, like YOU, stand with the Republican Party 100%.<br/> </blockquote> <p>Donald Trump's name may not have been on that email, but its message — and its overtures to stochastic terrorism — were couched in his terms: Republicans are "real Americans" and true "patriots"; Democrats are the Other, an enemy to be vanquished. </p><p>Joe Biden has declared himself a president for all Americans. In practice, however, that may be impossible. Instead, Biden needs to realize, sooner rather than later, that he must be the best president possible while refusing to surrender to the demands of a Republican Party and right-wing public that views him (and his voters) as illegitimate and un-American. To compromise with such people is not a path to national healing. It is a path to the betrayal of American democracy that will only serve to undermine our new president's ability to lead the country back to reality, sanity, health and perhaps even greatness.</p>
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