(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty)
Donald Trump’s rants are becoming increasingly unhinged. (Seriously, have you heard his thoughts on magnets? Wild stuff). Anyway, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann is the latest figure Trump tries to make into a punching bag.
Trump decided to call Weissmann the “slimeball boss” of special prosecutor Jack Smith. And while Weissmann did work as lead prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office, he exited in 2019, before the events that led to the charges Smith has brought. Now Weissmann is an MSNBC analyst, meaning he has plenty of opportunity to rebut the claims Trump is making.
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And on Inside with Jen Psaki, Weissmann did just that. He made a two-pronged argument:
“One is the use of adjectives and adverbs. That is not legal argument. That is not a factual argument, any more than if you say the election was stolen.
“You need to have facts. Adjectives and adverbs is not a way of arguing, especially for someone who had been the leader of the free world, let alone anyone else. And I think that’s really important.
“On the substance, which is to suggest that somehow I am Jack Smith’s boss ― again, where are the facts of that? have had zero communications with Jack Smith or his team. They are independent, both within the Department of Justice and certainly for a legal analyst on MSNBC.”
Yeah, those pesky facts have a way of really stinging the former president.
You can watch the segment below.
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"Adjectives and adverbs is not a way of arguing, especially for someone who had been the leader of the free world.”@AWeissmann_ responds to Trump’s attacks on him this week. pic.twitter.com/aOSd1UVNTC
— The Briefing with Jen Psaki (@PsakiBriefing) January 7, 2024
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].