A free-for-all for (they hope) freedom

By BRUCE LOWITT

A melee broke out at the office of Fani Willis as Donald Trump’s co-conspirators stampeded the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney, demanding that they be allowed to plead guilty and testify against the former president in order to avoid prison.

“I was here first,” Jeffrey Clark, a former U.S. Justice Department environmental lawyer facing two charges including one violation of Georgia’s RICO Act, shouted as he swung an attache case wildly, striking former Coffee County, Georgia, elections director Misty Hampton in the head.

“The hell you were,” Hampton yelled, trying to extricate herself from the grip of former Coffee County GOP chair Cathleen Latham, facing 11 counts to Hampton’s seven. “Let go of me, you bitch. I’m not going to jail because of your forgery and … ow!”

Hampton then kicked at John Eastman, a former Trump election lawyer facing nine counts who was trying to climb over her.

Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff who has said he told the former president that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election, was in a nearby office working out a deal for immunity to testify at Trump’s trial.

“I wasn’t going to rat him out,” Meadows said, “but when I ran into him the other day he kneed me in the groin and called me a pussy – ironic, his use of that word, eh? – and I figured it was just a matter of time before he threw me under the bus, too, so I decided to grab the steering wheel and stomp on the accelerator.”

The chaos at Willis’ office erupted not long after Jenna Ellis, a Trump lawyer, pleaded guilty following two of the former president’s other attorneys, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, who sat on a bench, eating popcorn and watching the mayhem unfold.

A fourth defendant, the first to plead guilty, was Scott Hall. But as Eastman said, “Nobody gave a shit about Hall. He was just a bail bondsman, not a high-priced lawyer like me. Hell, no one even knows who the fuck he is.”

“Former lawyer, Eastman,” Hall shot back. “You’ll be a disbarred jailhouse lawyer when they’re finished with you.”

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer until the former president fired him for bleeding hair dye all over his suit and favorite red tie when they hugged during a premature victory party after the 2020 election, claimed he was first in line at Willis’s office because he’d spent the previous night curled up with a bottle of Fireball whiskey and fell asleep at her office door.

“Somebody must’ve tried to drag me to the back of the line and I’ll sue the bastard when I find out who it was if I can find a lawyer to represent me pro bono,” said Giuliani, who had managed to work his way toward the front when most of the defendants ahead of him scattered as he projectile vomited the whiskey and his lunch and dinner.

Surprisingly, Drew Findling, Dwight Thomas and Jennifer Little, three lawyers representing Trump in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, were also in line to meet with Willis, although they stood patiently well away from the moiling mob of defendants.

“We figure at some point the former president is going to say or do something that’s going to throw all our work into the toilet,” Findling said, “and one of us is probably going to respond by doing or saying something that gets us legally screwed around here. So we’re just hedging our bets by entering come-what-may guilty pleas that will get us leniency before the shit hits the fan.”