Trump is 'never happy with his legal team': NYT's Maggie Haberman dishes dirt on lawyers – Raw Story
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Anybody representing the former President Donald Trump as an attorney must aim for infallibility. Anything short draws his scorn.
The New York Times' Maggie Haberman appearing on CNN's "The Source" with Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday explained that the 45th president is a tough client to please.
"He's almost never happy with his legal team," she said.
ALSO READ: Trump's spell is broken — no wonder he's mad
Trump suffered a loss last week in federal civil court where a New York jury of seven men and two women awarded 80-year-old columnist E. Jean Carroll with $83.3 million for suffering defamation since she came forward with claims she was sexually violated inside of a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman. The case was purportedly a tricky one to win.
A separate trial last year convened where Trump was a no-show and a jury found him liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her, calling her claims "a hoax and a lie" and adding, "This woman is not my type!"
Two weeks before the curtain raised on the second defamation trial, notable trial attorney Joe Tacopina withdrew as his counsel.
He is one of many Trump lawyers who have stepped away from repping him in his many ongoing legal cases including Jim Trusty and Timothy Parlatore, who both played central roles in his Mar-a-Lago classified documents hoarding investigation.
Alina Habba took over for Tacopina and throughout the weeks of trial, constant fireworks ensued between her and U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan.
At one point early on, Habba sought a delay for Trump after his mother-in-law passed away, and in an exchange she was scolded and told to "sit down."
"I don't know how winnable this case was for anybody, Alina Habba or not," Haberman said. "But, you know, Trump has certain things he wants from his lawyers and I think you see that."
Watch the video below or click the link.
Political commentator and lawyer John David Dyche was recently asked by a national media organization to pre-write an obituary for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to be published after his death.
Instead, he wrote a scathing portrayal of his time in office for the senator's local paper The Lexington Herald-Leader — and he wants Senate's minority leader to read it.
Dyche starts out by saying he was once a supporter of McConnell's "before breaking with him in 2016 over Donald Trump."
Also complicating his objectivity for a McConnell obituary is the fact that he recently wrote a column in the Kentucky Lantern, in which he apologizes for having supported Republicans like McConnell "who abandoned their previously professed conservative principles to support or collaborate with Trump, the antithesis of true conservatism."
"I passed on penning an advance obituary. Fairness and good taste dictate that if I am going to say anything about McConnell for publication, I should say it while he is alive. Hence this piece," Dyche writes.
Also read: How a GOP strategist delivered 'most compelling evidence' of Trump’s 2020 corruption: book
Dyche says he likes McConnell personally and has a lot of respect for his political skill. He also acknowledges that McConnell "has done much good" during his political career. "However, since Trump’s rise and takeover of the Republican Party, McConnell’s vaunted political acumen has failed him at critical times."
During the rise of Trump, Dyche says that McConnell, like himself, underestimated Trump's popularity and the burgeoning MAGA movement. McConnell, like others in his party, thought Trump would lose to Hillary Clinton in 2016. When Trump won, McConnell thought he could use Trump to his benefit.
As a result, McConnell’s role as an "amoral, purely transactional collaborator in the normalization of Trump’s cruel, proto-fascist, venal, and vulgar demagoguery will have even worse and longer lasting destructive consequences for our constitutional democracy."
Read the full op-ed over at The Lexington Herald-Leader.
A militia group that the Biden administration blamed for the deadly attack on U.S. forces stationed at a shadowy base in Jordan said Tuesday that it would stop targeting American troops in Iraq, a move that could clear the way for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers more than two decades after the 2003 invasion.
"We announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces—in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government," Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, the leader of Kata'ib Hezbollah, said in a statement. "Our brothers in the Axis, especially in the Islamic Republic of Iran, they do not know how we conduct our Jihad, and they often object to the pressure and escalation against the American occupation forces in Iraq and Syria."
Pentagon officials have specifically named Kata'ib Hezbollah as one of the groups behind the drone attack on U.S. troops in Jordan over the weekend. U.S. President Joe Biden and administration officials have said they ultimately hold Iran responsible for the attack, accusing that country's government of funding and arming Kata'ib Hezbollah and other militia groups in the region.
Kata'ib Hezbollah's leader said in his statement that the group has launched attacks on U.S. forces at its "own will, and without any interference from others." Biden administration officials have admitted they have no evidence that Iran directed the Jordan attack.
Biden told reporters on Tuesday that he has decided how to respond to the Jordan attack but declined to provide any details.
Asked during a media briefing about Kata'ib Hezbollah's statement, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said he doesn't "have a specific comment to provide, other than actions speak louder than words."
The drone attack on American forces in Jordan came a day after the U.S. and high-ranking Iraqi officials held their first round of formal talks on the process of removing the roughly 2,500 U.S. troops still deployed in the country.
Analysts have argued that the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria has dramatically increased the likelihood of a broader regional war. The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein reported Tuesday that U.S. military personnel in Iraq received a memo this month instructing them to be "on standby to forward deploy to support troops in the case of on-ground U.S. involvement in the Israel-Hamas war."
Hisham al-Rikabi, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, toldCNN on Tuesday that Kata'ib Hezbollah's vow to suspend its attacks on U.S. forces "is the result of efforts made by" Iraq's government to "ensure the smoothness of the negotiation process and in order to complete the withdrawal [of U.S. troops] from Iraq."
The New York Timesreported Tuesday that Kata'ib Hezbollah had previously ignored the Iraqi government's requests to stop attacking U.S. forces, "but once the attack in Jordan on Sunday took American lives, Mr. Sudani demanded a complete halt from Kata'ib Hezbollah."
"Mr. Sudani reached out directly to Iran, according to a military strategist for the Revolutionary Guards who works closely with the Axis groups in Iraq," the Times added.
Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, said in response to al-Rikabi's comments that, "if true, this is the least bad outcome."
"Iraqi militias agree to stop targeting thousands of U.S. troops, who then can be safely removed from harm's way, more than two decades after the disastrous Iraq war," Sperling wrote on social media. "Hope we'll see U.S. troops in Syria brought home too."
Domestic and regional pressure on the U.S. to withdraw its forces from Iraq has grown since Israel began its latest assault on the Gaza Strip in October following a deadly Hamas-led attack. Militia groups, including Kata'ib Hezbollah, have launched upwards of 160 attacks on American troops in Iraq and Syria since October 7, and the Biden administration has retaliated with airstrikes in both countries—infuriating the Iraqi government and fueling concerns about a full-scale regional war.
The Jordan attack took those concerns to new levels as warhawks in the U.S. Congress demanded that Biden retaliate with strikes inside Iran. Progressive lawmakers, for their part, have called for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, warning that further military action would only exacerbate the regional crisis.
Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, said Tuesday that "if any party attacks Iran's territory, or its interests or citizens abroad, it will be met with a decisive response."
U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) blasted his GOP colleagues for their unwavering devotion to Donald Trump while ignoring their critical national security oversight responsibilities during the House Republicans’ Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on impeaching DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday.
“We have held zero – I repeat – zero full committee hearings dedicated to emergency preparedness, cyber threat, infrastructure protection, transportation security, Department of Homeland Security management or information sharing and intelligence efforts,” Menendez the son of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) declared.
“With the global dynamic that we have, we have not lived up to our oversight obligation here on this committee because you all are obsessed with the border, because you bend the knee to the ‘Orange Jesus,’ as you refer to him across the aisle.”
“That’s what this is about,” the freshman congressman shouted angrily. “And we have failed, failed, our jurisdiction on this committee, so I’m tired of being lectured.
“You know, I try to listen here. I try to be a team player. I really do. I try not to engage in the partisanship, but I’ve had it. I’ve listened to a lot of accusations here today. We are here on a sham impeachment hearing, because the partnership of this committee, and enough is enough. Ms. (Marjorie Taylor) Greene asked the American people, the American people are listening. They are and they’re tired of the partisanship of this Republican majority that has failed to get things done.”
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