On Tuesday Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney explained why a three-judge panel ordered Jonathon Moseley’s law license revoked on Friday. Disbarring these crackpot Trumpist attorneys hasn't been happening enough-- and it needs to. Moseley has been representing "a slew of high-profile Jan. 6 defendants, including a member of the Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy, as well as several targets of the House select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol. Most prominent among Moseley’s criminal clients is Kelly Meggs, an Oath Keeper from Florida who took on a leadership role for the group that breached the Capitol. Moseley also previously represented Zachary Rehl, one of the Proud Boys leaders charged with conspiring to obstruct Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, though he withdrew from that case in December" None of that is a reason to disbar him or anyone else Even the most odious defendant is entitled to a defense attorney.
Details of the bar discipline case against Moseley were not immediately available, but a summary posted on the Virginia State Bar website on Tuesday said the court found that he violated “professional rules that govern safekeeping property; meritorious claims and contentions; candor toward the tribunal; fairness to opposing party and counsel; unauthorized practice of law, multijurisdictional practice of law; bar admission and disciplinary matters … and misconduct.” The decision was effective on April 1.
Moseley was originally hired by the Reagan administration for a minor job and has been involved with fringe GOP politics for his whole rocky career, including being suspended from practicing law before. He has come to represent what the Republican Party has turned into as it abandons mainstream mores and heads straight towards the fascist cesspool that Trump made vaguely acceptable for Republican office-holders and Republican voters, especially in the Old Confederacy and in backward rural parts of the country that feel left behind.
Yesterday, writing for The Bulwark, a conservative Republican website that detests Trump, Tim Miller took a look at this new GOP and found that it's now nothing but a bigger version of Trump Steaks. Trump's and Nunes' rival to Twitter, Truth Social, is, predictably, a scam and a flop, just like all Trump's business ventures have been, "airlines, steaks, board game, university, magic pills, magazine, etc. [F]rom the jump, TRUTH had all the marks of a media buzz Potemkin Village that allows the first family of grift to cash in, but doesn’t deliver anything of value to the marks who got swept up in the hype... As a standalone the story of Trump launching a failing business that screws people over doesn’t really get my fingers tapping. That’s a dog-with-dentures-bites-man tale if there ever were one. What is interesting, and underappreciated, is just how bought in the entire Republican party infrastructure has been on promoting the former president’s latest bunco scheme."
The RNC, Kevin McCarthy’s SuperPAC, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have all been begging people on their e-mail lists to join TRUTH Social... and then threatening them when they don't. After that right-wing Senators Rick Scott, Steve Daines, Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Chuck Grassley, Bill Hagerty, Mike Crapo, James Lankford, Roger Marshall and Deb Fischer all started running Facebook ads telling their followers to sign up.
“What do you want your username to be on Trump’s new app? Hurry!”
This urgent missive was one of dozens upon dozens of fundraising emails and texts I received from the Republican National Committee and other official Republican political organizations over the past few months providing pro-bono promotion for TRUTH Social.
In this instance the RNC was requesting that I tell them my TRUTH username (N.B. It’s @FredDidNotLoveYou). The committee then asked me to pitch in a few bucks to show that I STAND WITH TRUMP, conveniently pre-checking a box that would make said donation recurring and warning that if I unchecked I would not be doing my part to SECURE TRUMP’S LEGACY.
I declined to reply.
My demurral did not please Ronna “Don’t Call Me Romney” McDaniel. Just eight hours later I received another stalkerish email from her committee with the subject line: “We’ve been trying to reach you”
This time they wanted me to “PLEDGE” that I will register for TRUTH Social-- which is a bit culty if you ask me. Is this an app or a religious sect? The RNC was “counting on me to take the pledge before it’s too late.”
...An official political party doing this much PR for one of their leader’s private enterprises would be gross under any circumstances.
But in this case the party is not just corrupt and double dealing.
And not just rehabbing a man who attempted to end our democracy.
No sir. They are knowingly misleading their own supporters in service to a complete swindle run by a crook.
The entire party has turned into one big off-shore call center trying to trick granny into handing over their credit card number to pay for some phony life insurance.
Or put another way:
The Republican Party is Trump Steaks. Trump Steaks is the Republican Party.
And if you don’t pledge to sign up for their grift TODAY, they are going to have no choice but to revoke your patriot card and tell Mr. Trump that you are no longer part of the club.
70% of Americans see Russia as our enemy, while dozens of congressional Republicans just voted against a harmless resolution bucking up NATO. It hans't persuaded voters to abandon the party. Most Americans favor student loan forgiveness-- but not congressional Republicans. They have been attacking Biden just for extending the moratorium of repayments-- which came from the Trump regime. They are on teh wrong side of almost every policy issue... but voters just hate the weak, vacillating Democrats so much that they are increasingly embracing the idea of staying home or voting for Republican congressional candidates. This one is running against AOC. I dare you to watch the whole minute: