July 29, 2017
Donald Trump ran for president promising to reform the system, drain the swamp, get rid of useless federal employees, and to use his really great big business brain to make America great again. He has been delivering on those promises too. The swamp water is now drained low enough that Steve Mnuchin, former CEO of One West Bank’s foreclosure factory, was able to travel over from the morass on Wall St to become the Secretary of the US Treasury. Trump is also getting rid of those useless employees, like former Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub, Jr, iwho resigned in the face of Mr. Trump’s triumphant refusal to comply with unnecessary regulations like government ethics rules. He has also targeted other bloated bureaucrats like (allegedly-soon-to-be-former) Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III whom he has browbeaten all week ii in a valiant attempt to rid the federal government of yet another bloated wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive government employee.
Next week, Mr. Trump is expected to fulfill two more promises as he demonstrates the prowess of his huge business brain and takes a big league step toward reforming the legal profession. He has reportedly authored a paper with his Counselor Kellyanne Conway on a novel approach to conflicts of interest that has the potential to convert the entire world of legal ethics. It is sure to get the legal field talking.
Ms. Conway sat down with the Diogenetic Light to give us an exclusive preview interview (the official first interview will, of course, go to Breitbart). We talked about this radically groundbreaking alternative approach to governmental and legal ethics through the subfield of conflict of interest law.
“We start just like Antonin Scalia used to with a time honored method of legal interpretation," began Conwiiiay, "we look at a dictionary, and, if possible - or useful to our purposes, we end there as well . The dictionary says that a conflict occurs when two things are opposed to each other. An interest is a right that you have or something you have or want. So, a conflict of interest is when somebody wants to do something that somebody else doesn't want them to do.”
We asked her how would this new kind of legal theory play out as applied in a legal case?
“Well it’s really simple,” she replied, “it just means that you can’t harass important people through the courts anymore.”
Who is getting harassed and how?
“Well, Mr. Trump is, for one.” Conway then continued, “What they have been doing to him is awful. Mr. Trump has a right to keep his private business records private and any lawyer that wants to see those records has a conflict of interest with Mr. Trump. Thus, any lawyer that wants to see Mr. Trump’s taxes has a conflict of interest and may not interfere in any legal proceeding where such conflict of interest arises.”
What are the implications of this new theory? What does this mean?
“Look,” said Conway, “Mr. Trump has an interest in keeping his tax records private, but Mueller wants to look at them. They aren't really private if Mueller looks at them, so that's a conflict. By our plain dictionary reading of conflicts of interest, that means that Mueller has a conflict of interest in this investigation and must recuse himself or step down.”
In order to be fair and balanced, we reached out to law professor Brendan Beery, a law professor at the Thomas M Cooley Law School, to get an understanding of the traditional understanding of a conflict of interest.
“In its broadest sense, a conflict of interest occurs when there is something that prevents an attorney from strongly advocating and working for the client to the best of his ability,” Professor Beery began. “A classic example would be if a defense attorney decided to join a prosecutor's office. In that case, he would not be allowed to work on cases of his former clients that he used to defend.”
“Oh, no,” interjected Conway, “this new legal theory only applies to the legal ethics of top executives like the president or a CEO of a large corporation.”
“Really?” questioned Beery, “That sounds like you may run into equal protection issues without a compelling reason to justify only applying your theory to the top echelons of executives.”
“We do,” Conway answered. “What you need to understand is that the President’s job is really, really hard. Nobody knew it would be so hard. So it is our duty to not bother him and let him work for America.”
“Pure applesauce," Beery said quoting the late Justice Scalia's zinger when asked about this new legal theory on conflicts of interest. “This is what we call the “uh-uh” defense, which may work well up to about 4th or 5th grade, but no judge is going to accept this argument.”
“What is it about the relationship with Comey that would prevent Mueller from working hard to get to the truth about what happened between Trump and Russia?” Professor Beery then pointed out that “Accounts from their co-workers state that, though they respect each other, they weren't particularly close. It's not like Mueller invited Comey to have dinner to discuss ongoing investigations or give mutual loyalty pledges. I'm frankly surprised that Trump wouldn't want someone as diligent and intelligent – and a former registered Republican before he took the reigns at the FBI – like Mueller leading this investigation. Mueller is sure to get to the truth, and that is supposed to exonerate Mr. Trump, right?”
“As far as a dictionary definition,” Beery said, turning to the newly proposed legal theory, “definitions themselves are context-dependent. A ‘hard drive’ could be traveling a bad road to grandma’s house, a plot of an old western film, or a device to hold computer memory depending on the context. A conflict of interest, as used in a legal context, should be given its legal meaning.”
“You can't expect people to understand half of those words, let alone the entire sentence,” Conway retorted. “How dare he use such pretentious words with the American people! This is why people voted for Trump – because liberals like Clinton and the professor just have too much education.”
“But I thought you wanted to use a dictionary when you argued?” queried Beery in reply. “Now you suddenly don’t want to use a dictionary? Sounds like more ‘pure applesauce’ to me.”
“That just shows how great this new theory really is,” Conway retorted. “Applesauce is sweet and wholesome, it's loved by babies and old people alike, and it will keep you regular.”
The interview had to end there due to Conway’s busy schedule, so we ended by asking Prof. Beery if there was any possible middle ground between the two views. “Well, Ms. Conway may have a point about regularity. This new theory is a way to keep moving mental excrement around,” Beery offered exasperatedly.
Consistent with Trump's proclivity to break from tradition, he and Ms. Conway will skip the normal step of trying to publish in an established academic journal. Instead, they plan to submit their theory to publications that will reach the people who need this information directly. Of course, Breitbart is on their publication list, and so are some other prominent publications that promote other points of view like Freedom Daily, InfoWars, The Daily Caller, and The Daily Stormer. They have confessed, though, that they are open to as much publicity as possible for this new branding of Trump Executive Ethics® law. “Toward that end, we have submitted the paper for review to the Antonin Scalia School of Law (ASSoL) where we expect it to be published in Her Honor – The Journal of Women’s Pure Law published by ASSoL’s Masters in Women's Law program.
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Rex Dicta, a prominent libertarian thinker and sovereign citizen iv advocate says he is excited to hear about this new approach to legal reasoning. “We have advocated a new approach to legal interpretation for decades, and have been persecuted vfor it,” he said, “but these activist judges refuse to accept our analysis, especially of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). They just keep insisting that they continue to follow the old standard interpretation of the law and its limits instead.” vi
“Trump understands us, though,” he continued. “There probably isn’t anyone in the US that’s been in court as much as he has. Now that Trump has taken the lead on this issue, changes that stop discriminating against our interpretation of the UCC and the Rome Statute might start to be taken seriously.”
Satire Note: Nothing in this article should be taken as absolute fact. Any similarity between the peope or events described in this piece and those in real life is entirely due to the ridiculous nature of ideas that certain people argue for.
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References
i http://www.npr.org/2017/07/06/535781749/ethics-office-director-walter-shaub-resigns-saying-rules-need-to-be-tougher
iihttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-28/trump-attacks-on-jeff-sessions-roiling-base-in-deep-red-alabama
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