(Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images)
As Donald Trump prepared to whip his militia of Proud Boys and Q Quacks into a violent and ultimately deadly frenzy, he was chilling out with his cronies in a tent listening to poor Laura Branigan who is unfortunately no longer around to issue a cease-and-desist letter for dragging her art into the administration’s bargain basement fascism pageant. And, because he’s a talentless disappointment thirsty for anyone to fill the daddy-sized hole in his heart, Don Jr. filmed the whole affair.
Thankfully he lets the camera linger on boring scenery without any commentary for minutes at a time. BECAUSE HE’S AN AUTEUR!
Now, right there before Junior praises Mark Meadows as a “fighter” — words that would take on a more ominous tinge about an hour later — that guy over his shoulder is good old Eric Herschmann, late of Kasowitz Benson and now a “senior advisor” to Donald Trump. There he is in grainy glory right there:
Continuing Kasowitz’s neck-deep involvement in the travails of this administration — a bond that started even before Trump’s election when Kasowitz was getting Ivanka and Junior out of criminal prosecutions — Herschmann parlayed his Kasowitz role into a full-time gig with the White House “with a hazy portfolio” as the New York Times puts it. And since the New York Law Journal already wrote that Kasowitz’s involvement was hurting the firm, maybe getting out wasn’t the worst move.
But, that hazy portfolio includes at the very least a prominent role in peddling the Hunter Biden nonsense:
The three [Herschmann, Stefan Passantino, and Arthur Schwartz] had pinned their hopes for re-electing the president on a fourth guest, a straight-shooting Wall Street Journal White House reporter named Michael Bender. They delivered the goods to him there: a cache of emails detailing Hunter Biden’s business activities, and, on speaker phone, a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s named Tony Bobulinski. Mr. Bobulinski was willing to go on the record in The Journal with an explosive claim: that Joe Biden, the former vice president, had been aware of, and profited from, his son’s activities. The Trump team left believing that The Journal would blow the thing open and their excitement was conveyed to the president.
That bid… didn’t work. But it may not be the only disinformation campaign that Herschmann’s quarterbacking, with many tying his vague advisor role to overseeing and advising on the various post-election legal challenges that made up the ooey gooey filling of Trump’s insurrection HoHo. His cameo in this video of a rally to spread debunked myths about the election seems to underscore that involvement.
But despite the delusion these people instilled in the rioters, Donald Trump will no longer be president in a few days. And when he exits the White House, what’s going to become of enablers like Herschmann? Are they going to return to the welcoming embrace of major law firms? Are clients going to remember all this?
Probably not. If this country didn’t have the attention span of a goldfish, people like Herschmann wouldn’t be trying to turn dubious Hunter Biden emails into a scandal.
Trump Had One Last Story To Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t Buy It. [New York Times]
Former Trump impeachment lawyer heads to White House [Politico]
Earlier: Marc Kasowitz… Will You Accept This Rose?
Ivanka And Don Jr. Avoided Indictment The Old-Fashioned Way: By Being Rich
When People Start Writing About You Destroying Your Firm, Things Aren’t Going Well
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.