Gimme That Ole Time Corruption: Pat Robertson in the Schemes of Jay Sekulow and Donald Trump

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power. - George Bernard Shaw

The Three Self-Dealers: Another Unholy Trinity Formed Around Trump?

President Trump solidified his ties to the Christian Right by appointing Jay Sekulow as his lawyer to handle the Trump-Russia-Collusion-Obstruction problem. Came highly recommended from the likes of Pat Robertson. And for several reasons:

1. Sekulow is chief attorney for the ACLJ - the Christian Right legal defense team founded by Pat Robertson

2. Sekulow's web of self-run non-profits funnel money to Pat Robertson's shadowy Advocacy Services

3. Sekulow is just as corrupt as both Robertson and Trump (primarily in his self-dealings and family-filled "non-profits") and and is just as much of a showman.

Washington Post

Since 2013, CASE [Sekulow's Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism] has forwarded $500,000 each year to a small charity called the Law and Justice Institute that has no employees and relies almost exclusively on CASE for its revenue,tax filings show. Sekulow is president of the Law and Justice Institute. The Law and Justice Institute, in turn, has paid $500,000 each year to Advocacy Services. Robertson is president of that firm, according to Virginia state records. Robertson’s spokesman did not address written questions about the payments from The Post. [emphasis mine]

And he's as bombastic and tenacious towards his enemies as Trump is:

First, Sekulow is at home in the spotlight. He hosts a daily radio show that airs nationally and online. He has been a regular contributor and on-air guest at Fox News. And his bombastic personality has stood out to several other attorneys in the Christian legal movement – asking to remain anonymous, one lawyer told me Sekulow “spends an inordinate amount of time tooting his own horn.” Judging by his past, appearing on various Sunday morning shows to defend Trump is a natural act for Sekulow.

What is Sekulow getting out of all of this? It's possible Trump may not pay Sekulow: he has a history of not paying legal fees (unless they're paid by the Trump Foundation). In fact, one of his former legal teams has liens against his properties.* It's possible that Sekulow - ever the media hound - has an agenda involving power over the media.

Trump is certainly no stranger to self-dealing and eager to appease the Christian Right via Pat Robertson, so again, Sekulow is a perfect match. Robertson has also defended Trump:

Lest there be any doubt that Christian televangelist Pat Robertson supports President Donald Trump, the longtime host of the 700 Club declared that God put Trump “in this office.”“He’s God’s man for the job,” Robertson said this week, as Right Wing Watch reported.

Pat Robertson was really angry with FBI Director James Comey, this morning: "Once again that clown that is in charge of whatever you call those people, FBI, is in charge of the headlines."

This last statement is ironic, since both Comey and Mueller came to the aid of Robertson's good friend and spiritual colleague John Ashcroft when he was in the hospital being besieged by Bush's White House staff.

About the only real difference Robertson has with Sekulow and Trump is that he really, really hates Russia.*

RECIPROCITY


Note: pictured above with Trump, Robertson and 

Sekulow is Gary Marx, leader of the Faith and

 Freedom Coalition - the entity involved in the 

Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Birds of a feather...

So dirty money and favors flow between these three seemingly opportunistic con men. In Pat Robertson's world, it's called "reciprocity," but without the God factor.

God has little to do with this trio of corruption.


Reciprocity. Corruption. Perhaps the best depiction of the two intertwined is in this scene from "Chicago."

*USA Today:

One law firm that fought contractors over payments and other issues for Trump — New York City’s Morrison Cohen LLP — ended up on the other side of a similar battle with the mogul in 2008. Trump didn’t like that its lawyers were using his name in press releases touting its representation of Trump in a lawsuit against a construction contractor that Trump claimed overcharged him for work on a luxury golf club.

As Trump now turned his ire on his former lawyers, however, Morrison Cohen counter-sued. In court records, the law firm alleged Trump didn’t pay nearly a half million dollars in legal fees. Trump and his ex-lawyers settled their disputes out of court, confidentially, in 2009.

In 2012, Virginia-based law firm Cook, Heyward, Lee, Hopper & Feehan filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization for $94,511 for legal fees and costs. The case was eventually settled out of court. But as the case unfolded, court records detail how Trump's senior deputies attacked the attorneys' quality of work in the local and trade press, leading the firm to make claims of defamation that a judge ultimately rejected on free speech grounds.

*Again, Irony:
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I apparently agrees with U.S. preacher Pat Robertson that Haitians brought the earthquake on themselves:
Kirill, speaking during a weekend visit to Kazakhstan, said the Haitian people bore responsibility for the calamity because they had turned away from God.