When NPR sued Donald Trump Tuesday, it had an easy argument to go with. Normally, in First Amendment retaliation cases against the government, you have to pull together a bunch of disparate strands to prove the retaliatory intent of the actions. But as NPR noted in its filing, and as Justice Scalia once wrote about obvious constitutional violations: “this wolf comes as a wolf.”
Trump’s executive order cutting public media funding doesn’t even pretend to hide its retaliatory nature — it literally calls NPR and PBS “biased media” in the title.
Republicans have been gunning for public media for decades, but historically, every time Congress tries to cut funding, outcry from their constituents is so overwhelming that nothing ever happens. It turns out tons of people (including Republican voters) actually like NPR and PBS. But Trump skipped Congress entirely and simply declared that public media wouldn’t be receiving any more federal funding — because he thinks their coverage hurts his feelings.
Aside from destroying one’s career and reputation, it must be extraordinarily difficult to represent Felon Drink Bleach as a lawyer.
It must also be somewhat demoralizing to be on the side that loses such a great proportion of court cases.
The attorneys in it for the money dropped off at the time of his impeachments. Those that are left? They are gambling for access to power.
Pam Bondi and Alina Habba were Trump’s personal lawyers. Stupefyingly incompetent conspiracy theorists and utterly uninterested in a payday (along with justice or truth). Their only qualifications were that they drank Trump’s Kool-aid and were pushing it on the public. They are now the Attorney General and US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, respectively.
It can’t be because it pays so well. With Trump you always run the risk of getting shafted on the bill.
Any lawyer who would work for him without requiring payment upfront and enough to retire on is a fool who isn’t competent enough to practice law anyway and deserve everything they get
The money is not their main driving goal, they know, or realize that Trump can shaft them on the payments.
What they do think they’ll gain is to be seen as a legal force to be reckoned with.
It does not matter if their legal strategy is a twisted mess of lies and wrong assumptions, they see trump controlling the courts and any win he is given by a corrupt judge reflects on them as a pure win on the case. And that is something they can wear as a badge while he is in office.
They also just bet on this regime sticking around for a long time so they can clutch to their status for quite a while, perhaps it leads to some lucrative advisory contracts down the line.
Even if I agreed with everything that Orange baboon said, I still would never work with or for him. The damage to my career would be incalculable. Might as well go flip burgers after that
Yeah, I keep being amazed how many people that definitely should know better keep falling for his crap. I get that your average MAGA rally attendee is just the type that gets scammed routinely, but he’s got actual billionaires, successful lawyers and business people falling for the same shit, after a first administration where nobody came out of it looking good.
Exactly I remember certain people who worked in his administration, who, after the fact said, I can’t even get hired anywhere. Why would anybody else sign up?