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The
opening
weekend
of
our
annual
tournament
is
in
the
books,
delivering
some
close
calls
and
even
an
upset!
For
those
who
missed
it,
we
set
up
a
small
bracket
challenge,
in
the
spirit
of
March
Madness,
to
determine
which
Trump
lawyer
most
deserves
to
lose
their
law
license.
Administration
lawyers
have lied
or
otherwise
misled
tribunals
across
the
country, defied
or
encouraged
defying
court
orders, breached
basic
rules
of
prosecutorial
responsibility,
and
more.
There
is
no
mechanism
to
probe
and
punish
this
behavior
except
for
state
bar
authorities
to
implicate
the
law
licenses
of
these
attorneys
for
breaching
rules
of
professional
responsibility.
It
may
well
be
that
nothing
can
halt
this
bad
behavior,
but
there’s
a
chance
that
throwing
a
wrench
in
their
plans
for
a
lucrative
revolving
door
private
sector
legal
job
could
give
them
pause.
Or
at
the
very
least
protect
the
public
going
forward.
So,
as
the
first
round
of
our
little
tournament
concludes,
we
say
goodbye
to
half
the
field.
But
remember
that
it’s
not
whether
you
win
or
lose,
but
what
we
learn
about
their
colorably
unethical
conduct
along
the
way!
ROY
COHN
REGION
1
Pam
Bondi
v.
4
James
Percival
No
surprises
here
as
the
top
seeded
Attorney
General
rolls
over
Homeland
Security’s
General
Counsel.
Percival
likely
raked
up
a
handful
of
votes,
from
those
who
believe
that
the
DOJ
—
whatever
its
faults
—
has
not
acted
with
the
level
of
brazen
lawlessness
that
DHS
has.
It’s
a
fair
argument,
but,
like
most
of
the
legal
arguments
advanced
by
DHS,
it
failed
to
carry
the
day.
2
Ed
Martin
v.
3
Brendan
Carr
By
less
than
a
hundred
votes,
FCC
Chair
Brendan
Carr
upsets
Ed
Martin!
An
epic
takedown
because
Martin
came
into
the
tournament
with
a
truly
impressive
resume,
having
used
his
authority
to
drop
charges
against
his
own
former
client
and
issue
threats
where
he
admitted
no
criminal
liability
existed.
He’s
also
the
only
participant
in
the
pool
that
even
the
DOJ
felt
necessary
to
remove
from
his
position
based
on
an
internal
investigation.
But
in
a
battle
of
guys
extra
thirsty
for
media
attention,
Martin’s
excesses
couldn’t
move
the
needle
like
Carr’s.
Carr
is
firing
off
legal
threats
to
sink
Jimmy
Kimmel
for
making
jokes
about
Trump
and
threatening
news
organizations
for
accurately
reporting
on
the
Iran
war.
Can
he
pull
off
another
upset?
1
Lindsey
Halligan
v.
4
Drew
Ensign
In
a
battle
of
malicious
incompetence
vs.
malicious
competence,
incompetence
won.
Halligan
beclowned
herself
as
the
phony
U.S.
Attorney
for
the
Eastern
District
of
Virginia,
launching
dubious
investigations
into
the
president’s
enemies
and
then
screwing
them
up
so
badly
that
they
all
got
tossed.
A
federal
judge
told
her
she
wasn’t
legally
in
the
job
and
she
kept
showing
up
to
work
anyway
until
yet
another
judge
told
her
to
go
home.
Meanwhile,
Ensign
has
conducted
himself
superficially
normally
in
court
while
advancing
the
administration’s
least
defensible
positions,
including
telling
a
judge
that
he
didn’t
know
about
deportation
flights
when
a
whistleblower
places
him
at
the
very
meeting
discussing
those
flights.
2
Alina
Habba
v.
3
Steven
Vandervelden
Arguably
the
scariest
2
seed
in
the
tournament,
Habba
was
overdue
for
a
disciplinary
review
before
illegally
squatting
in
the
New
Jersey
U.S.
Attorney
job.
A
federal
judge
imposed
$1
million
in
sanctions
against
the
former
parking
garage
lawyer
as
part
of
Trump’s
legal
team
in
the
frivolous
RICO
claim
against
Hillary
Clinton.
Her
stint
as
NJ’s
top
federal
prosecutor
also
ended
with
a
judicial
benchslap.
Vandervelden,
meanwhile,
can
return
to
his
photography
business
and
forget
his
disastrous
attempt
to
come
out
of
retirement
to
prosecute
lawmakers
for
accurately
describing
law.
1
Todd
Blanche
v.
4
David
Warrington
Another
crush
for
the
DOJ’s
senior
leadership.
Blanche
rolled
over
the
competition
like
it
was
threatening
Jeffrey
Epstein,
the
infamous
pedophile
that
Todd
Blanche
is
working
overtime
to
protect,
despite
the
explicit
text
of
a
congressional
statute.
Warrington
has
really
done
an
amazing
job
of
staying
below
the
radar
given
that
his
official
role
as
White
House
counsel
puts
him
at
the
center
of
every
legal
debacle
across
the
administration.
But
it’s
time
for
Warrington
to
go
home,
just
like
all
the
January
6
rioters
that
he
got
pardoned.
With
this
loss,
ASS
Law
is
now
out
of
the
tournament.
2
Jeanine
Pirro
v.
4
Kash
Patel
Less
than
20
votes
separated
these
two.
In
the
end,
the
only
U.S.
Attorney
in
the
tournament
who
actually
holds
that
job
legally
managed
to
clip
the
FBI
Director.
Pirro
has
managed
to
make
a
mockery
of
the
time-honored
maxim
that
a
prosecutor
can
indict
a
ham
sandwich
by
bringing
cases
so
frivolous
that
grand
juries
take
the
unusual
step
of
rejecting
the
bill
out
of
hand.
In
one
instance,
Pirro
managed
to
get
a
unanimous
rejection
from
a
grand
jury!
Patel,
meanwhile,
is
not
acting
as
a
lawyer
these
days,
but
he
still
must
adhere
to
the
rules
binding
the
rest
of
us
if
he
ever
hopes
to
practice.
Ultimately,
his
not-technically-lawyering
status
may
have
kept
him
from
moving
on.
1
Emil
Bove
v.
4
Harmeet
Dhillon
Bove
technically
left
the
administration
when
he
became
a
Third
Circuit
judge,
but
since
he
continues
to
openly
carry
himself
as
a
partisan
representative
of
the
administration,
he
stayed
in
the
bracket.
As
the
former
administration
official
who
reportedly
instructed
DOJ
lawyers
to
respond
to
court
orders
by
telling
federal
judges
“f***
you,”
Bove
didn’t
need
a
long
tenure
at
DOJ
to
present
a
colorable
case
for
disciplinary
inquiry.
Dhillon’s
work
dismantling
the
DOJ’s
Civil
Rights
Division
may
be
objectionable
and
run
afoul
of
statutory
edicts,
but
she’s
mostly
spent
her
time
in
catty
Twitter
fights
hoping
to
generate
more
followers
than
misrepresenting
the
record
in
court.
So
this
one
felt
inevitable.
2
Chad
Mizelle
v.
3
John
Sarcone
The
man
who
wants
to
recruit
future
AUSAs
by
having
them
slide
into
his
DMs
slides
into
the
next
round.
Mizelle
left
his
role
as
DOJ
Chief
of
Staff
with up
to
$250,000
in
undisclosed
conflicts
of
interest
involving
companies
the
DOJ
was
actively
suing
or
investigating,
including
Apple,
Meta,
and
Visa.
Sarcone,
meanwhile,
holds
the
distinction
of
being
the
only
fake
prosecutor
on
this
list
to
continue
pretending
to
hold
his
job.
A
federal
judge
this
month
kept
an
order
in
place
blocking
Sarcone
from
issuing
subpoenas
to
harass
Trump
enemies
while
the
Second
Circuit
considers
the
legality
of
his
appointment.
We’ll
unveil
the
new
matchup
polls
on
Thursday,
but
in
the
meantime,
here’s
where
that
puts
our
tournament
right
now.
