LAW SCHOOL AND THE ART OF LYING AS ESPOUSED BY DONALD TRUMP
LAW SCHOOL AND THE ART OF LYING AS ESPOUSED BY DONALD TRUMP
By
David Gottfried
“You have to learn how to smile as you kill if you want to live like the folks on the hill”
John Lennon
Donald Trump reminds me of something that I first glimpsed in law school. I think most people from rough and tumble backgrounds learn this before they reach puberty. However, nice middle-class children imbibe a hunk of junk that tells them that the guys in charge know what’s best for them and should be obeyed.
In law school, I learned that we lawyers were supposed to abide by an ethical code. In large measure, the ethical code was nothing but a verbose iteration of the commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Lie.” (I am not sure if one of the ten commandments says this, but to paraphrase a black servant in a play by Lillian Hellman, if God didn’t say it, he should have.) But why use the four words of a biblical commandment to say something when you can adorn your straightforward ideation with superfluous sentences that create the appearance of intelligence. Hence the bumbling, ungainly prose of the ethical rules.
Soon after I graduated, I learned that the ethical rules were routinely violated. I don’t want to tax your patience, but please bear with me as I explain one specific example of the law’s liaison with dishonesty and fraud.
If Mr. A sues Mr. B in a New York Court, he may wish to get dirt on Mr. B before the trial. He may believe that Mr. C possesses dirt. He can question Mr. C, and get documents from Mr. C, if he serves a subpoena on Mr. C. The subpoena does not require the signature of a Judge. Indeed, it is not promulgated by the Court.
Nevertheless, many New York attorneys forge the name of a Judge’s signature on the form. Indeed, the form for subpoenas, used by my old law firm, had a space for a Judge’s signature. Many New York attorneys use forms made by the company Blumbergs, and the Blumberg subpoena form has a space for the wholly unnecessary Judge’s signature. The first time I prepared a subpoena my boss told me to sign the name of any judge in New York State Supreme Court. I asked whose Judge I should select. Bored with me, he told me to sign any goddamn judge’s name.
Attorneys do this, even though subpoenas do not require a judge’s signature, to cow and intimidate the recipient of the subpoena by making him think that a Judge has ordered him to testify. In fact, the recipient of a subpoena is free to make a motion to quash or negate a subpoena if it is unfair or unwarranted.
Once my client was served with a subpoena which bore a forged judge’s signature. I sought to quash the subpoena because of the forgery. The Court and my adversary were aghast and stunned. They said that this was done all the time. (I knew it was done all the time. I was trying to “make new Law.”) They said that the attorney who wrote the subpoena was free to forge a judge’s name because as an attorney he was an officer of the Court. In other words, if you are an attorney you are a special person given a special dispensation to lie while pretending to be an apostle of honesty.
Soon it dawned on me: The ethical rules were set up so good guys would behave themselves and get eaten alive by the bad guys. The guys who had relatives and friends in the law knew that the ethical rules were something that we just play lip service to, such as the idea that we should not put our knee on a black man’s neck and suffocate him to death.
The nice guys have been badgered and beaten and buggered for centuries because they have been prisoners of the two bit morality of the old and new testaments which teach us to be good boys and girls and meekly accede to the depredations of sons of bitches the world over.
Today, Trump, a big rich bastard who knows that ethics were meant to strangle good men, is now trying to steal the election from us. He is going to Court. There is an excellent chance he will win. He wants to stop the vote from being counted. That’s just what Bush demanded and got from the Supreme Court in 2000.
In any event, since the big boys will lie to us, I want to give some advice to the unprincely people who are young and trying to make something of themselves and find themselves surrounded by humanoid rodents, such as slick businessmen.
Do not trust them. Do not respect them. Recognize that empires are built by lies, theft and murder. And, if you need some extra bucks, try to steal from them, try to rob them blind, but only do it if you establish a very elaborate plan to avoid getting caught.