It’s a truth well-known to cross-examining attorneys: The best way to obtain the truth is often to “kill your opponents with kindness.”
Witnesses always expect the opposing counsel to immediately start screaming at them. But that only causes the witness to stay alert and say as little as possible.
So the smart attorney comes on as courteous, friendly, even sympathetic.
A classic example of this: A laborer claimed to have permanently injured his shoulder in a railway accident, leaving him unable to work. He claimed he could no longer raise his arm above a point parallel with his shoulder.
The railway’s attorney asked him a few sympathetic questions about his injuries. And the witness quickly volunteered that he was in constant pain and a near-invalid.
“And, as a result of the accident, how high can you raise your arm?” asked the attorney.
The witness slowly raised his arm parallel with his shoulder.
“Oh, that’s terrible,” said the attorney.
Then: “How high could you get it up before the accident?”
Unthinkingly, the witness extended his arm to its full height above his head—to the laughter of the judge, jury and spectators.
Case dismissed.
In politics, sometimes your best friends turn out to be your worst enemies.
Kevin McCarthy proved this during his September 30, 2015 appearance on Fox News.
McCarthy, the Republican member of the House of Representatives from Bakersfield, California, was undoubtedly feeling relaxed.
After all, he wasn’t being interviewed by such “enemies” of the Right as The New York Times or MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow.
He was being interviewed by Sean Hannity, a Right-wing political commentator whose books included Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda and Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism.
Sean Hannity
The topic under discussion: Who would be the next Republican Speaker of the House, now that John Boehner had announced his decision to leave not only the Speakership but the House itself in November?
Now Hannity wanted to know what would happen when the next Republican Speaker took office. And McCarthy—who was in the running for the position—was eager to tell him.
“What you’re going to see is a conservative Speaker, that takes a conservative Congress, that puts a strategy to fight and win.
“And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?
Kevin McCarthy
“But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her [poll] numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known that any of that had happened had we not fought to make that happen.”
In 51 words, McCarthy revealed that:
- The House Select Committee on Benghazi was not a legitimate investigative body.
- Its purpose was not to investigate the 2012 deaths of four American diplomats during a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.
- Its real purpose was to destroy the Presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
- To accomplish this, its members spent 17 months and wasted more than $4.5 million of American taxpayers’ funds.
On October 8, 2015, Republicans were expected to choose their nominee for Speaker. On that same date, McCarthy announced that he was withdrawing his name from consideration:
“Over the last week it has become clear to me that our Conference is deeply divided and needs to unite behind one leader. I have always put this Conference ahead of myself. Therefore I am withdrawing my candidacy for Speaker of the House.”
When reporters asked McCarthy if his revelation was the reason he withdrew, he replied, “Well, that wasn’t helpful.”
But then he quickly replayed the official Republican version: “But this Benghazi committee was only created for one purpose: to find the truth on behalf of the families for the four dead Americans.”
On October 29, 2015, Republicans—holding the majority of House members–elected Paul Ryan, (Wisconsin) the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
Democrats and Republicans were united in their anger that the real reason for the Benghazi “investigation” had been revealed.
Democrats were furious that McCarthy, in an unguarded moment, had revealed that their major Presidential candidate had been the victim of a Republican smear campaign disguised as a legitimate inquiry.
And Republicans were furious that McCarthy, in an unguarded moment, had revealed that the “legitimate inquiry” had been nothing more than a Republican smear campaign.
For McCarthy, the Benghazi Committee had legitimately served the nation—not by uncovering relevant details about a terrorist act but by causing Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers to drop.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan had attacked the leaders of the Soviet Union thusly: “They reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
McCarthy’s comments demonstrated that the Republican Party had adopted the same mindset and tactics as the dictators of the former Soviet Union.
Two years and six months after Kevin McCarthy revealed himself and his party as ruthless hypocrites, Republicans suffered a similar outbreak of truth.
But this time, the stakes were higher—involving Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States.
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YOUR FRIENDS AS YOUR WORST ENEMIES: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 9, 2018 at 12:13 amPresident Donald Trump has two major legal problems.
First, he’s under investigation by Independent Counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller, who’s armed with top-flight investigators and an unlimited budget.
And, second, his attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, is rushing from one TV talk show to another, making incriminating statements that Mueller can use against Trump.
Giuliani is a former United States Attorney and United States Associate Attorney General. So he should know that the more he speaks about Trump, the more potential leads he provides Mueller’s investigators to follow.
Rudolph Giuliani
Thus, he said, on Fox News’ “Sean Hannity” program, that Trump paid back his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, the $130,000 in hush money that Cohen paid porn actress Stormy Daniels.
The reason: To ensure her silence over an alleged affair with Trump.
Giuliani’s statement, on May 3, contradicted Trump, who had previously denied knowing about the payment. It also contradicted Cohen’s February statement that Trump did not reimburse the $130,000.
Not content to stop there, Giuliani added: “Imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton“—thus giving a political motive to the action.
Donald Trump
Giuliani, appearing on a Right-wing Fox News show, clearly felt comfortable. After all, he wasn’t being interrogated by a reporter for CNN or The New York Times.
It’s precisely that sense of safety that experienced cross-examiners hope to instill in witnesses—just before they lower the hatchet.
But Hannity—an ardent supporter of Trump—wasn’t trying to ensnare Giuliani.
Hannity asked if Trump would testify before Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
GIULIANI: “Well, right now, a lot of things point in the direction of, they made up their mind that [former FBI Director James] Comey is telling the truth and not the president.
“When you look at those questions about what does the president think, what does the president feel, what does the president really desire, those are all questions intended to trap him in some way and contradicting what is in fact a very, very solid explanation of what happened.
“He fired Comey because Comey would not, among other things, say that he wasn’t a target of the investigation. He’s entitled to that. Hillary Clinton got that. Actually, he couldn’t get that. So, he fired him and he said, I’m free of the guy, and he went on Lester Holt.”
James Comey
Later in the interview, Giuliani returned to the Cohen payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels:
GIULIANI: “Having something to do with paying some Stormy Daniels woman $130,000, I mean, which is going to turn out to be perfectly legal. That money was not campaign money, sorry, I’m giving you a fact now that you don’t know. It’s not campaign money. No campaign finance violation.”
HANNITY: “They funneled it through a law firm.”
GIULIANI: “Funneled it through a law firm and the president repaid it.”
HANNITY: “I didn’t know he did.”
GIULIANI: “Yes. Zero.”
HANNITY: “So the president—“
GIULIANI: “Just like every, Sean—“
HANNITY: “So this decision was made by—“
GIULIANI: “Sean, everybody—everybody was nervous about this from the very beginning. I wasn’t. I knew how much money Donald Trump put in to that campaign. I said $130,000. You’re going to do a couple of checks for 130,000.
“When I heard Cohen’s retainer of $35,000 when he was doing no work for the president, I said that’s how he’s repaying—that’s how he’s repaying it with a little profit and a little margin for paying taxes for Michael.”
HANNITY: “But do you know the president didn’t know about this? I believe that’s what Michael said.”
GIULIANI: “He didn’t know about the specifics of it as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement that Michael would take care of things like this. Like, I take care of things like this for my clients. I don’t burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people….
“A settlement payment which is a very regular thing for lawyers to do. The question there was, the only possible violation there would be wasn’t a campaign finance violation, which usually results in a fine by the way, not this big storm troopers coming in and breaking down his apartment and breaking down his office.
“That was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way I would do out of his law firm funds or whatever funds, it doesn’t matter. The president reimbursed that over a period of several months.”
HANNITY: “But he had said he didn’t, I distinctly remember that he did it on his own—“
GIULIANI: “He did….”
**********
So, Giuliani:
If Trump were a reader, he might now recall the famous warning by the French philosopher Voltaire: “Lord, protect me from my friends. I can take care of my enemies.”
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