And Then There Were Four: The Final Contenders For The Crown Of Most Disgraced Trump Lawyer

One step closer.

Final 4After a very chalky Embarrassing 8, the top seeds of each of our regions managed to make it to the penultimate round. On the one hand, that’s made for an unfortunately predictable tournament. On the other hand, as the person who seeded everyone, I feel pretty good about how I weighed everyone’s chances.

We’ll bet on this round through Thursday night at 11:59 p.m. Eastern and unveil our championship round on Friday morning.

Here’s where we are right now:

Bracket 4

Now we’ve got some serious showdowns!

(1) Rudy Giuliani v. (1) Bill Barr

There was a day when people legitimately called Rudy Giuliani “America’s Mayor.” The title was always a little dubious, but people really considered him a political star. At one point he even topped the polls in the GOP presidential primary. Today, he’s professionally untouchable. His cybersecurity firm lost a decent amount of credibility when Rudy started butt-dialing reporters while discussing… shadiness. His last serious lawyering gig dropped him, yet he kept that job on his website for years. Maybe if he wins this competition we can trick him into bragging about it on Cameo.

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Meanwhile, Barr already boasted a stint as Attorney General on his resume as a high-profile lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis. Then he started auditioning for the Jeff Sessions job via cable news hits where he’d rant about Hillary Clinton and uranium deals and sent love notes to Donald Trump where he’d make up stuff about how obstruction of justice works. He then tossed propriety to the wind, intervening in prosecutions, trying to fire the people investigating the very real and very ongoing allegations surrounding his opponent here — Rudy Giuliani — and coming up with the idea that defaming sexual assault victims falls within the official duties of the president. He claims to be delaying a return to practicing while launching his book… which might be a convenient cover for “no one wanting to hire a raging dumpster fire.

(1) Sidney Powell v. (1) Alan Dershowitz

This matchup presents a philosophical question: do you define disgrace by how low one goes or by how far one has fallen?

Sidney Powell wasn’t a household name until Trump’s electoral defeat generated a market for loons willing to say or do anything to indulge the fantasy that the most unpopular president in American history couldn’t possibly have lost. From unfounded affidavits alleging ballot switching to Italian satellites to the machinations of a dead guy, there were wacky excuses everywhere and most of them found their way into the “Kraken-sphere.” After pledging to “release the Kraken,” Powell’s gone a resounding 0-fer in court, but has racked up sanctions and a billion dollar defamation suit, so that’s something!

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Dershowitz, not content to rest on his laurels as one of the most famous law professors in the country, threw himself into right-wing media appearances where the networks treat him as a mascot — the quote-unquote liberal willing to parrot their conservative talking points — and everyone seems to be in on it except Dershowitz himself. Which would be bad enough for making him look no better than a common Turley, but at least wouldn’t tie him directly to Trumpland. But then he had to volunteer himself for Trump’s first impeachment, where he offered the Nixonian gem that if presidents do it, it can’t be illegal — prompting furious backpedaling when everyone gasped at how stupid that is. He’s currently farming himself out to the MyPillow crackpot. That should go great for everyone involved!

So get to voting. We’ll report the results and set up a final showdown on Friday.


HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.