Trump's spokeslawyer Rudy Giuliani went on Fox News and shamelessly compared the Mueller investigation to "a lynching mob." It was a thoughtless, ugly, privileged thing to say, prompting Lawrence O'Donnell to convene a panel to smack him around.
And smack they did.
Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney in Alabama, told O'Donnell, “It’s incredibly disturbing to hear him say that. I live in Alabama and not too many weeks ago a memorial to victims of lynchings occurred down here,”
She continued, "For Rudy Giuliani to compare what Robert Mueller’s team of experienced prosecutors and investigators, from whom we haven’t heard a single peep or a leak in this entire run of an investigation, for him to compare those people to lynching mobs in the deep south during Jim Crow era is deeply offensive.”
Of course, Rudy knows who his audience is, and it isn't people like Joyce Vance.
Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate attorney, was even more blunt, and particularly with regard to Giuliani's claim Trump can only be investigated by Republicans (referring to Trump's constant whining complaint that there are some Democrats on Mueller's team).
"Richard Nixon was a Republican president investigated by Democrats," she noted. "But Donald Trump is a Republican president being investigated by a Republican. Mueller is a Republican. I can say for sure that for the professionals in the Department Of Justice the party affiliation have nothing to do with how they will investigate. It has to do with the facts.”
“I think he’s taking too many lessons from Roseanne Barr and Donald Trump in his language, and it’s unforgivable for a lawyer representing the president to speak that way," she chided.
Concluding her remarks, she offered Giuliani some friendly advice. “I think it’s time for Rudy to zip up and stop talking because he’s making things worse for the president, he’s not helping him.”
Yes, Rudy. Please zip up. Please. It's incredibly offensive to hear him bang the "Poor Trump the Victim" drum over and over again, especially while minimizing and diluting the impact of lynchings and what they meant to real people. It might play to Trump's racist base, but it certainly isn't helpful to the state of our politics.
(h/t Raw Story)
UPDATE (Frances Langum): Many followers of Jill Wine-Banks know she wears pins to send messages -- There's a connection to the word "zip" in last night's pin.
