According to a statement, a group of anti-Trump lawyers and internet experts are quietly convening regular via Zoom to talk and plan their strategies for handling former president Donald Trump’s legal situations.
Former Obama official, former Trump impeachment team member, and CNN legal analyst Norman Eisen hosted a Zoom call for Trump hating lawyers and pundits to “hash out” developments in the cases and” stress-test” legal arguments against him on Tuesday, according to Ankush Khardori, a former federal prosecutor and senior writer for Politico magazine, on Fridays since 2022.
The meetings are off- the- record and, according to Khardori, are” a chance for the group’s members” — many who are affiliated with MSNBC or CNN— to “grapple with” novel legal issues before discussing them on air.
Members include former Nixon lawyer and CNN contributor John Dean, former head of Russia collusion, MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissman, and former CNN executive Jeffrey Toobin, who was previously fired from CNN for exposing himself during a Zoom call.
Watch: https ://t.co/ONaNdngMRq
— Breitbart News ( @BreitbartNews ) April 24, 2024
Other members include CNN’s Elie Honig, a senior legal analyst for CNN, Barb McQuade and  Joyce White Vance, a podcast host for MSNBC, former senior justice official and podcaster Mary McCord, Karen Agnifilo, and Elliot Williams, a CNN commentator.
Other “regulars” include the most egregious legal figures on lefty social media, including Asha Rangappa, a former ABC News contributor and former federal prosecutor, and New York University professor Ryan Goodman, a former federal prosecutor.
According to the report, “most people are united by their dislike of Trump,” and there are typically about a dozen people on the call.
There are sometimes special guests, such as House January 6 committee staffers, E. Jean Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan, the former judge who led a public campaign to disqualify Trump from ballots J. Michael Luttig.
Khardori writes somewhat cynically — almost mockingly — of the group, calling it” the perfect emblem of today’s Trump- media- legal- industrial complex”.
He explains how the group members have used Trump’s legal issues to advance their own careers:
Trump’s unheard legal situation has created a vibrant media ecosystem. Lawyers and legal experts who might have once been confined to unfamous clients or academic work are now in a very high demand in the media, even more so than they were during Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation. They are creating well-followed social media feeds that frequently appear to serve as self-promotional tools for their other media products and as a way to entice television bookers with the most recent hot take on Trump’s court cases. They are also hosting podcasts, writing books, and popular Substacks. For them, this is a unique opportunity to speak out with the public at a crucial moment in American politics and to achieve a standing and recognition that few attorneys can ever achieve. The people on this call play a crucial role in the system, helping to create and shape content for Trump-hungry consumers, and on some levels, even the call itself.
Khardori wrote that some of the group’s members were concerned that Trump’s claims of a legal conspiracy would be supported by his story.
One person told him,” It runs the risk of making the impression that mainstream media organizations are cooperating or conspiring.” ” And that could feed into some false and damaging perceptions, particularly on the right”.
Members of the public have denied that they are creating any talking points or tactics in an effort to derail Trump’s presidential campaign or to put him in jail.
” It feels almost like a seminar in law school”, a participant in the group claimed, adding, that most calls comprise “deliberation, debate and discussion”, albeit” with a distinct anti- Trump tilt to it”.
However, the report revealed that some members are skeptical about whether Trump should have been brought in the first place and whether his case against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg should have been brought. According to the report, that has been” somewhat of a running theme across some of the calls.”
Trump supporters and conservative commentators did not agree with group member coordination denials.
Sean Spicer, a former press secretary for the Trump administration, posted on X:
[ I] f you believed there was a coordinated campaign against Trump… You were correct, and the cover inside the Off-the-Record calls allegedly made by anti-Trump legal skeptics just got blown off.
if you believed there was a coordinated campaign against Trump… You were correct, and the cover was simply blown off.
Inside the Off- the- Record Calls Held by Anti- Trump Legal Punditshttps: //t. co/53SWf0c3sH
— Sean Spicer ( @seanspicer ) April 23, 2024
Anyone surprised that this group exists, writes Byron York, a columnist for the Washington Examiner?
Anyone find this group to be surprising that there is one like it? I discovered that some group members were understandably anxious about its publication as I was reporting on this story. Trump has claimed that there is a legal conspiracy against him …’ https ://t.co/ZhFYPQOhD9
— Byron York ( @ByronYork ) April 23, 2024
Commentator Joe Concha posted:” The legal’ analysis’ you , therefore see on CNN/MSNBC by these winners is all contrived”.
Joined Carley &, Todd to discuss those private Zoom sessions by anti- Trumpers including Laurence Tribe, George Conway, Asha Rangappa &, Jeffrey Toobin, among others.
The legal “analysis” you therefore see on CNN/MSNBC by these winners is all contrived. https ://t.co/Nu877w2sJY
— Joe Concha ( @JoeConchaTV ) April 24, 2024
Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on” X”, Truth Social, or on Facebook.
