Sullivan & Cromwell co-chair Bob Giuffra is working his approach up the MAGA hierarchy. Yesterday, he was noticed by Enterprise Insider’s Jacob Shamsian on the Second Circuit argument within the E. Jean Carroll defamation case the place the president’s legal professionals had been arguing that presidential immunity ought to invalidate the $83.3 million jury verdict towards their shopper for defamation. On the argument, Giuffra was seen with Boris Epshteyn, the controversial private lawyer of Donald Trump.
Now Giuffra *does* signify the president — Sullivan & Cromwell is dealing with Trump’s enchantment of his hush cash conviction. Although that’s… not this case.
This left lots of observers questioning: what the hell was Giuffra doing there?
Giuffra’s time could be very priceless — all the way down to the 6 minute interval — so he’s getting *one thing* out of the looks. Some helpful networking maybe? It’s not that he wants to listen to the argument, sure presidential immunity can also be a difficulty in Giuffra’s case, however the oral arguments are obtainable on-line. If “maintaining abreast of developments in presidential immunity jurisprudence” was all Giuffra cared about, he might tune in on-line and save himself the journey time (on one of many hottest days of the 12 months, no much less).
However I’ve to marvel simply how this schmoozing goes down at S&C. There was lots of inner turmoil when Giuffra introduced the illustration. Representing an adjudicated intercourse pest, with a historical past of dictating a brash (and never very S&C-like) litigation technique (after which stiffing his legal professionals in addition!) had an actual approach of draining morale. The everyone-deserves-a-criminal-defense argument wears fairly skinny when Giuffra is displaying up for funsies in a civil case the place the decide needed to repeatedly make clear that the trial “conclusively set up[ed] that Mr. Trump did, forcibly and with out her consent, penetrate Ms. Carroll’s vagina along with his fingers.”
Unsavory for a White Shoe agency doesn’t even start to cowl it.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Regulation, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Pondering Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the most effective, so please join along with her. Be happy to e-mail her with any ideas, questions, or feedback and comply with her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].
