A man so bad at working with lawyers should not be the nation’s commander-in-chief, a new analysis contends.
The National Review published Wednesday a scathing critique of work done by the many attorneys defending the former president from the numerous criminal and civil charges he faces, but cast blame on their “client from hell.”
“To hear Trump tell it, he is always being betrayed,” writes Dan McLaughlin. “At some point, the chronic incompetence of the people carrying out even simple rule-following tasks on his behalf has to reflect on the man’s capacity to do an executive job.”
Trump’s inability to work with attorneys — whom Trump has stiffed, lied to and thrown under the bus — is to blame for their red-letter legal mistakes that include forgetting to ask for a jury in New York Attorney Letitia James’ $250 million civil fraud lawsuit and forgetting to argue presidential immunity in response to E. Jean Carroll’s $5 million civil suit, says McLaughlin.
The mistake in Carroll’s defamation case came back to haunt Trump Wednesday when a New York City appellate court ruled he waived the right to an immunity defense by not making it sooner.
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Ultimately Trump gets “the bad lawyering he deserves” because good attorneys flee, McLaughlin said. Others end up taking plea deals to avoid being co-defendants in his criminal election interference case or face $43 million defamation suits that make national headlines.
This trait of Trump’s proves problematic for McLaughlin when he considers the role Trump hopes to win in 2024, namely president of the United States.
“The presidency is an executive job,” writes McLaughlin.
“Aside from what comes out of presidents’ mouths or what they tweet with their thumbs — i.e., the sort of thing that got Trump sued in this case in the first place — most of what presidents do is done through other people.”
