KAYFABE at MAR-A-LAGO? Who is Trump's Lawyer John P. Rowley III? A Stroll Down Memory Lane...
The dream of the nineties is alive in Mar-A-Lago...
I can hear you now, “Charles, Charles, Charles, I thought you said Trump was a Fed, why, oh why, was Mar-A-Lago raided?”
Recall that a raid does not an arrest make, let alone an indictment. And yes, there’s a long proud history of informants getting arrested and even going to jail before they are let out again.
I like to play another game — cherchez l’avocat. Search the lawyer.
Who then is John P. Rowley III?
So now, dear reader, President Trump lifts up the veil of privilege — don’t indict me, bro! — and all the would be conspirators get done in.
Say, doesn’t Rowley represent all this would be conspirators? Indeed he does.
Politico’s Betsy Swan has more:
Trump isn’t the only person Rowley represents in Jan. 6-related legal fights. The attorney also represents Trump’s former senior aide Peter Navarro, who DOJ has charged with contempt of Congress for his refusal to cooperate with the Jan. 6 select committee.
Rowley also represents former Trump White House aide Stephen Miller and Trump-allied lawyer Cleta Mitchell in civil litigation related to the congressional probe. He has also represented Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who was subpoenaed by the select panel.
My, my, my. That’s quite a number of folks. How does he find the time now that he’s in private practice by himself? Could it be that he’s not doing that good a job on purpose?
Law enforcement is, after all, the family business. Rowley is a former assistant U.S. attorney and you can find a few interesting cases he was involved in from way back when. He comes from a family of law enforcement — his brother, Raymond, served in the ATF and as a special investigator in the Department of Justice, as did his father, John P. Rowley II, who once testified before Congress.
As with so much of our political life, Rowley first came on the scene with the Clinton impeachment. He was quoted often about Monica Lewinski and the Starr investigation.
Rowley’s conflicts with the far right came to ahead when he resigned from the Republican committee that had been investigating Webster Hubbell over leaks from none other than David Bossie during the DNC criminal inquiry. Rowley repeatedly tried to fire Bossie — only to be overruled. He charged that Bossie had deliberately sabotaged the investigation.
Rowley resigned in protest over the Committee’s abuses, writing to Chairman Burton that he had “been unable to implement the standards of professional conduct I have been accustomed to at the U.S. Attorney’s office.” Rowley singled out Bossie “was trying to use the probe to ‘slime’ the Democrats, while Mr. Rowley wanted to ‘follow where the evidence leads.’” He decried Bossie’s “unrelenting, self-promoting actions."
(Rowley is a serious man and he was once jumped by teens in a rather crazy and brazen attack in 2017 that was foiled by a passerby. Who knows what it was really about.)
That name — David Bossie — might sound familiar. Bossie is the conservative activist who, flush with cash from Rebekah Mercer, gave the world the Citizens United—the Supreme Court case which made campaign money unrestricted. Bossie and I once met with David Panton — best friend of Ted Cruz — to discuss the 2016 election. We were both Team Cruz then. Oh, memories.
Recall also that la famille Mercer is under serious investigation for tax cheating to the tune of billions of dollars. Don’t worry. She still has money to give to JD Vance despite me and others explicitly warning him not to take that money. (Maybe that’s why he’s getting a Campaign Legal Center investigation and lawsuit!)
Bossie is also tied at the hip to Corey. Yes, Bossie who Trump called his efforts a scam pac when all it did was buy books and Bossie, who is still the Republican Committeeman for Maryland despite trying to oust Ronna McDaniel.
Is Rowley getting vengeance on the same network that he fought with way back when? Consider this:
Anyone who thinks Trump’s attorneys work just for him really doesn’t understand how it all really works.
“What's the end goal though, Charles?” you might ask. My editor — yes, this is edited — writes:
Does Trump want everyone taken down a la Alex Jones' attorneys? Does anything happening now contribute to a potential future mistrial? I think it's fair to speculate what this means for a Trump announcement, especially since he's playing the victim now. If this is purely a records recovery mission, it has to be one of the most overblown uses of federal resources.
If Trump stole a bunch of classified stuff, I still don't think that justifies an FBI raid on a former president. I can't opine until we have more information about what is happening, but I think this is going to embolden the wrong people in a way that doesn't help the body politic.
Even my friend Congressman Paul Gosar seems to have let the passions of the moment grab a hold of him.
The problem with the FBI is that it covers for the real criminals — this much we know — while persecuting others.
But I’m still left wondering: Could this all just be an elaborate way to get Donald Trump not to run for President in 2024?
Is this all professional wrestling? It sure feels like it.