Chris Christie, Giuliani & Dershowitz Hit Legal Stupid Trifecta

We watched the Sunday shows so you don't have to.

  Hello Wonks! Welcome back to another Sunday Roundup just ahead of the exciting Season Finale of The Apprentice: Supreme Court ! Monday at 9pm/EST! But before we know who will be the deciding vote in all the future "5 to 4" Supreme Court decisions to dismantle democracy, let's make fun of the amazingly idiotic and hypocritical things on ABC's This Week with George Sarcophagus .

Let's begin backwards on the show with former New Jersey Governor and ship Captain in Wall-E , Chris Christie.

Maybe if he's a good boy, Trump will let him wear the Captain's hat...  

Patrick Gaspard, president of the Open Society Foundation, put into context how big a shift the next Supreme Court seat can have in the court historically:

This is one of the most remarkable shifts that we're going to have in the Supreme Court in -- in -- in generations. The 1930 shift was remarkable, the 1968 shift was profound.

After Gaspard pointed out two of the major shifts ideologically, Chris Christie decided to point out how much of a small deal it is that Justice Kennedy might be replaced by a Trump pick:

CHRISTIE: Now, I'm not ready to buy into this -- that this is the most profound moment in the court since 1968. Anthony Kennedy, if you look at his voting record in the main, if you -- if you don't look at --
SARCOPHAGUS: Conservative.
CHRISTIE: -- at Roe and -- and at --
SARCOPHAGUS: Gay rights.
CHRISTIE: -- gay rights, Anthony Kennedy --
GASPARD: Two -- two historic --
CHRISTIE: But guess what? You know, on most other things -- OK. I understand your point. Except that those issues are much more important to some as opposed to others.

Well, of course if you ignore two of the most historic decisions Kennedy was a part of, really nothing changes. But it seems like a mighty big omission, especially since that is the reason for the Supreme Court fight that will occur. It's like saying "I'm monogamous, except for those two times I cheated on you." Or as this famous Orson Welles quote says:

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

Of course, this is not the first time Trump surrogates have omitted big historical events to fit their political narratives:

Speaking of Mr. " A Noun, a Verb & 9/11 ," Rudy Giuliani appeared on all the Sunday shows to spew the same legal "expertise" about Trump and his objections with the Mueller investigation:

GIULIANI: We have not. We're close to determining that. But the reason for the -- for the extension are the extraordinary things that happened that we didn't expect. It began before I started with the Cohen -- with the Cohen thing. It took a while to unravel all that. Then the -- the Horowitz report is devastating. I mean, it's 500-and-plus pages -- there are more things in that that you have to review than you can imagine. And it cast a taint over the entire investigation. It was started -- Mueller hired originally as his chief investigator a man that has some kind of vicious bias against Donald Trump. Out of all the FBI agents, how you could select that guy is beyond --

SARCOPHAGUS: Well as soon as he found about the texts, he fired him.

GIULIANI: Yes, but other people had to find it out. He didn't find it out. He didn't vet him properly. Nor -- nor has he vetted the people he has with him right now. He's got very, very severe partisans working on an investigation that should be done by people who are politically neutral.

So first let's marvel at the fact you have someone representing Donald Trump making a case for others' failure to " vet their employees. " But then let's move quickly on to the case he's making about people who have different political views being unable to conduct a criminal investigation when they should be "politically neutral." Amazing this neutrality didn't apply to the seven Benghazi investigations led by Republicans in the Congress or the Whitewater/Monica Lewinsky/Ken Starr investigation full of sanctimonious men of "moral character" like Senator Henry Hyde, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich and Senator Larry Craig. Seems like Giuliani, like the rest of the GOP, is projecting once again.

Finally we end with former O.J. Simpson lawyer and current Martha's Vineyard unperson , Alan Dershowitz. After Giuliani's usual "legal" ramblings, George Sarcophagus asked Alan to give his expert opinion:

SARCOPHAGUS: And Alan, let me begin with you. It's an interesting mixed message there from Rudy Giuliani. Nothing to worry about from Robert Mueller, yet the scorched earth against his team continues.

DERSHOWITZ: Yes, because there is something to worry about, obviously. In the end, if the president sits down with Mueller, he may be walking into a perjury trap. If he is unwilling to sit down, he may be subpoenaed, then probably they'll be a year or so of litigation. But in the end, probably he'll have to appear in front of a grand jury. His great vulnerability is a perjury trap, a perjury rap, because as I argue in my book, you need to commit a crime to be impeached.

And if he's committed previous crimes -- there's no evidence of that -- that won't work. But if he commits the crime of perjury, he's in Clinton-land.

So in this one moment Dershowitz both clarifies why Trump will avoid Mueller at all costs and the true reason Giuliani makes all these excuses:  Trump is a lying sack of shit who cannot tell the truth about anything, anytime . So essentially as soon as you put him under oath, he will instantly perjure himself because that is his nature. He can't help it.

When fellow panelist Asha Rangappa from Yale University was discussing Mueller's need to question the president to verify his motives, Dershowitz had this to say:

DERSHOWITZ: -- you can't start -- you can't start probing the motives of presidents, all presidents have mixed motives all the time.

Wow! Motive has been the main question of any political and legal investigation since "law"! Motive is the key between intent, negligence, malice or premeditation.

Hell, this is something you learn watching even one episode of Law & Order ! So it's astounding Dershowitz would now say this isn't a standard that can be applied to presidents. Call me crazy but I thought presidents were NOT above the law.

See you next week! Until then ...

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