MSNBC Guest Elie Mystal DESTROYS Trump Defense’s ‘Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer’ Shtick: ‘One of the More Pathetic Things I’ve Ever Seen’
The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal went off on a epic rant against the Trump impeachment defense’s strategy of dismissing first-hand and video evidence as hearsay and trafficking in “cancel culture” tropes to distract from Donald Trump’s role in the Capitol insurrection.
Speaking with MSNBC host Joy Reid after the fourth day of the Senate impeachment trial, Mystal repeatedly mocked the performance of Trump lawyers Bruce Castor and Michael van der Veen, often eliciting peals of laughter from Reid as he skewered their alleged legal missteps.
“You’re a defense lawyer,” Reid said introducing him on a panel. “Eli, I’ll start with you. Did you hear a defense today?”
“Yeah, I did,” Mystal replied, before launching into an acidly sarcastic takedown accompanied by mock-sinister hand gestures. “I heard: I’m just a caveman. I was unfrozen by your scientists. I think facts are made up, full cloth, and trying to cancel Republicans!”
Reid rocked back in her chair, fully cracking up at his reference to the old Saturday Night Live skit “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer,” who routinely proclaimed things like “Your world frightens and confuses me” and “My primitive mind can’t grasp these concepts” to duck inconvenient evidence and avoid indefensible arguments.
“It was one of the more pathetic things I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mystal continued, now upshifting into serious legal dissection mode. “The actually admitted — his lawyers admitted the violence was foreseeable, which is a key element in the crime that Trump stands accused of.”
“They repeatedly suggested that Trump should just be indicted by the criminal justice system, which is not something you’ll often hear from a defense attorney,” he added, as Reid gasped for air laughing. “Then at the key point, when they were asked by [Sens. Lisa] Murkowski (AK) and [Susan] Collins (ME), two Republicans, what did the president know and when did the president know it, they acted like the mere question was an anathema, like they never called up their client and said: ‘When did you know that the was happening?’ They acted like that was information that we do not have available.”
Mystal then noted that, in fact, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-TN) just confirmed that he had informed Trump that Mike Pence was being whisked out of the Senate by security — just minutes before Trump tweeted yet another attack on his own vice president.
After Trump’s attorneys claimed this was “hearsay,” Tuberville pushes back. He spoke directly to Trump amid riot. https://t.co/0ONzcRlnHJ
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 12, 2021
“That’s the whole case,” Mystal insisted. “And they didn’t do anything to defend the guy from the actual charges.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
