Laws Still Hold

 For the most part, we have seen Trump and his ankle-biting minions fail to achieve many notable success in "lawfare" against his political enemies. The law seems to be holding, at least in part because Trump's lawyers are a pack of gibbering morons. I saw Trump Knob-Polisher Johnathan Turley noting that the charges against James Comey and Letitia James were dismissed without prejudice, because the ruling was that the appointment of Lindsay Halligan as acting US Attorney was illegal. The Department of Justice could bring new charges once they legally appoint a new US Attorney.

OK, Turley really is an idiot for missing the central fact here: Trump can't find lawyers who are A) capable and B) willing to do his dirty work. Those are mutually exclusive circles. The same goes for the bullshit threats to prosecute Mark Kelly for being in a video reminding service members that their oath was to the Constitution and not to Hair Furor. First, Kelly and the others were right on the law: servicemembers cannot obey illegal orders. Second, Kelly is likely protected by his role as a Senator. Finally, I would imagine discovery would include determining the legality of the strikes on boats in the Caribbean. 

Maybe Hegseth tries to prosecute Kelly, but does anyone really think he's getting good legal advice? John Cole recently put it: "When everything you do is performative, performance is everything." All of this - the entire bullshit thing - is about what it looks like on the Fox News feed that is mainlined into that old fucker's "brain." His administration is full of Alina Habbis and Lindsay Halligans: dumb hotties from the Lionel Hutz School of Law.

I suppose we should be worried that Trump will find competent lawyers to do his dirty work, but I think this is where his manifest decline kicks in. Do you really want to hitch your wagon to this guy? It made sense when he was ascendant for any ambitious, amoral tool to sign up. Do a few years for Trump, then become a Fox News Personality. Does that still make sense?

The looming conundrum for Democrats is this: When they retake power, there will be dozens upon dozens of Trumpist capos who committed real and serious crimes that need prosecuting, but prosecuting them will be seen as more "vengeance" when really it's just the fact that Trump is a criminal who has surrounded himself with other criminals.