The law is an ass, and so are many of the people who practice it. Of this latter subgroup, a lot of them have managed to find their way into the president*’s employ. Take, for example, John Dowd, who seems to have blown a fuse or two. From The New York Times:

It is unclear whether Mr. Dowd discussed the pardons with Mr. Trump before bringing them up with the other lawyers. Mr. Dowd, who was hired last year to defend the president during the Mueller inquiry, took the lead in dealing directly with Mr. Flynn’s and Mr. Manafort’s lawyers, according to two people familiar with how the legal team operated. He denied on Wednesday that he discussed pardons with lawyers for the president’s former advisers.

“There were no discussions. Period,” Mr. Dowd said. “As far as I know, no discussions.”

Excuse me? There were no discussions, period. As far as he knows, there were no discussions of pardons, period.

As far as he knows.

I think we all may owe Pete Rose an apology.

John Dowd Getty Images

At the very least, the president*’s desperate search for mouthpieces who don’t think any contact with him will tank their careers has brought us some interesting people. From The New York Daily News:

Andrew Ekonomou, 69, an assistant district attorney in Brunswick, Ga., has been helping Trump attorney Jay Sekulow handle the ongoing Russia probe and will have a more prominent role on the team going forward following the departure of lead lawyer John Dowd last week. Ekonomou is a “brilliant strategist” who had been involved in complex investigations for years, Sekulow told Reuters.

Ekonomou told Reuters that a “mid-life crisis” led him to go back to school and get his doctorate in medieval history at Emory University in 2000. He penned a scholarly book titled “Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes” in 2007 about Rome and the Papacy following the Justinian Reconquest of Italy in the middle of the sixth century.

It was an interesting time for popes. Gregory I—Gregory The Great, whom John Calvin called the last good pope—is in there. There were popes from Croatia and from Palestine. Many of them ended badly. Martin I was tortured nearly to death by Emperor Constans II and died in exile in the Crimea. Honorius I was anathematized 40 years after he died. So, the new White House lawyer knows something about men in high places who fall all the way to the ground. It beats the alternative. I’m still expecting them to start hiring off late-night informercial TV one day very soon.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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