Empty Barrels, Noise

the great unlearning is very loud

The challenge is upon us, but keep reading. After a debate between academics and media figures about the Fourteenth Amendment and the question of disqualification from public office, a working lawyer has put rubber to the road and filed a lawsuit to keep Donald Trump off the presidential ballot. The question moves from television to the courts. If you read the news, this is a serious matter.

After a long academic paper on disqualification, after high-profile debate between prominent legal analysts, and in the first legal challenge of its kind, I thought I was in for a detailed and thoughtfully argued legal brief. So I went to Pacer and downloaded the thing to size it up and see where we’re headed. Here it is:

Caplan Brief

162KB ∙ PDF file

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It’s a middle school essay, seven pages long, with no footnotes, no exhibits, glaring factual errors, and a bunch of dumb typos. Here’s how carefully it’s written:

Imagine how impressed a district court judge will be to learn that Sectio n 3 doesn’t implicate any questions of :liberty” or “ right.”

This person has been a lawyer for 39 years. Presumably he types by slamming his forehead into a keyboard.

The brief mentions the recent academic paper that argues Trump is disqualified, but doesn’t cite the thing or provide it. It mentions and paraphrases the disqualification clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, but does not quote it. It makes claims like this…

Former federal judge Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and noted legal scholar Laurene Tribe have both come to the inescapable conclusion that the “disqualification clause” was designed to operate directly and immediately upon this certain individuals who betray their oaths to the U.S. Constitution, whether by taking up arms to overturn our government or by waging war on our federal government by attempting to overturn the results of a presidential election through a bloodless coup.

…but, not having footnotes or exhibits, doesn’t mention where or when or how Luttig and Tribe — whose first name isn’t “Laurene” — have made these arguments. And it makes this remarkable claim (emphasis added):

Recently, the Special Counsel, Jack Smith, who had been appointed by the U.S. Attorney General, submitted his findings on the events of January 6th, to an empaneled grand jury in D.C. which returned indictments against President Trump for, among other things, insurrection against the U.S. federal government. Trump was arraigned on these charges and now awaits trial sometime in 2024 or perhaps 2025.

This is false. Here’s the full text of the indictment — Trump has not been charged with insurrection, and a lawyer of almost four decades of experience has just told a federal district court that he has.

It’s a Potemkin lawsuit. It barely exists. Be grateful it was filed electronically, or the world would have wasted seven pieces of paper on it. And probably half a crayon.

I’m going to question one of my own frequent conclusions, and mention a growing suspicion. I often say that we’re “sick from the top down and healthy from the bottom up,” with rotten institutions but good people in good communities doing good things. I increasingly wonder if we have the illusion of capable, decent, effective people all over the country. I begin to suspect the hollowing out of forms that maintain attractive façades. (“Begin” isn’t really the right word, but let’s go with it.) We have hospitals full of doctors, law firms full of lawyers, and so on, with the appearance of normal function. But this person is a lawyer, and he just typed up this little bundle of dumb gibberish, then filed it with the federal courts. Hey judege, you has to make Trump not be preznit, ‘cause of he insurrectioned and the Laurene Tribe he say so.

What kind of lawyer files this pile of shit with a court? What kind of journalist types up a story that treats it seriously? Where are we, really?