Where does lawyering this bad come from?

How Trump’s lawyers lost their minds

It is a well-established fact that many of Donald Trump’s associates are lowlives and crooks. But I’ve long felt that a special kind of attention need be paid to his collection of personal lawyers, who collectively make up some of the most depraved, unethical, and generally repulsive characters to have ever claimed the title of “Attorney.”

The blueprint is provided by Roy Cohn, his first personal attorney, who was a Joseph McCarthy-staffer turned mob lawyer, disbarred in the 1980s after attempting to defraud a dying client of his fortune. (The documentary on his life is fantastic). But his two main successors, Michael Cohen (also disbarred) and Rudolph Giuliani, have been no less spectacular in their disregard for ethics and, in recent years, increasingly frivolous and insane legal strategies. There are major law firms in this mix, including Jones Day (despite recent denials) and special mention must be made of Alan Dershowitz and the Sekulow family. Adding to the bizarreness are recent additions L. Lin Wood (Satan worship) and Sidney Powell (“release the Kraken”).

Even by their own standards, the last few weeks have been extreme for Trump’s current legal team, the self-titled “elite strike force.” In an extraordinary mixture of conspiracy theory and horrendously…