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Wednesday, August 23, 2023

One Mar-a-Lago employee got a new lawyer, and flipped his earlier testimony.

 Other outlets may have covered the story, but Crabgrass read of it in TheHill.

The story is straightforward, and there's no paywall - subscription login.

What the story brings to mind, Zevon's song, "Send Lawyers, Guns and Money."

Guns and money are fungible. Lawyers, that's its own story. A paragraph late in the story:

Prosecutors have likewise requested a hearing for De Oliveira’s attorney John Irving, noting he still represents three witnesses in the case, which they say “raises the possibility that he might be in the position of cross-examining current clients.”

In these multi-party cases there is a prosecutorial favoring of each-against-the-other, but cross-examining one's other clients does suggest some deck chair rearrangement would ring truer. It is improper for defendants to be contacting and talking with witnesses, that is witness tampering, but the lawyers representing witnesses and defendants can talk to one another and that is called privileged negotiation, at least in civil litigation. The expectation being lawyers are professionals and would not overstep any standards of impermissible conduct.

There is a chance prosecutorial argument might try to claim special case status, where the witness with lawyer-1 said something, and then with laywer-2 changed his testimony; that the "otherwise" privileged lawyer-client privilege was "waived."

It is unlikely the each-against-the-other herding effort would reach that far, but it is a question ripe for reader thought.

I wonder if Trump and Tucker will discuss such stuff this evening, in the interview.