It didn’t seem possible, but Roy Moore may not actually be the nuttiest thing about the Alabama Senate race.
At the rate we’re going, that distinction may go to Moore’s attorney, Trent Garmon, who had his license suspended for 91 days in 2014 after he was caught impersonating a pastor and relative so as to solicit a family that had just buried its 13-year-old son.
On Wednesday, Garmon appeared on MSNBC to defend his client, who stands accused of pursuing sexual encounters with teens and minors in the 1970s. Moore has denied the worst allegations, including that he sexually assaulted 14- and 16-year-old girls and that he provided another woman with alcohol when she was below the legal drinking age in Alabama. But the GOP candidate hasn’t quite denied that he pursued women who were young enough as to require parental permission to go out on dates with him when he was in his 30s.
MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle pressed Garmon Wednesday specifically on the matter of Moore seeking permission from the mothers of his dates.
“That’s a good question,” Garmon said. He then turned to MSNBC co-host Ali Velshi and added, “Culturally speaking, I would say there’s differences. I looked up Ali’s and, wow, that awesome that you have got such a diverse background.”
This led to some confusion.
“What does Ali’s background have to do with dating a 14-year-old?” Ruhle asked.
Garmon explained where he was going with his line of thought by saying, “Sure, in other countries there’s arrangements through parents.”
Velshi was born in Nairobi, Kenya, but he was raised in Toronto. He attended university in Ontario. Canadian culture isn’t big on arranged marriages. Also, even if Velshi had spent more time in communities that embrace arranged marriages, that’s a terrible defense for Moore’s alleged behavior. That’d be like defending the Michigan doctor who was charged earlier this year with performing genital mutilation on two young female patients by arguing certain overseas cultures embrace that sort of thing.
If it were just Garmon’s appearance Wednesday on MSNBC or the one on CNN where he repeatedly referred to host Don Lemon as “Don Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy,” we’d assume he was just a screwball. Even with his 2014 suspension, we’d just assume he was unscrupulous and not necessarily a bad lawyer.
But there is so, so much more. We’re only scratching the surface.
Garmon drew no small amount of mockery Tuesday after his office sent newsrooms an incomprehensible letter, demanding they retract their stories about Moore’s alleged assaults on minors.
“Inaccurately reporting the travel expenses and accommodations of my clients, to include alleging that a private jet was used which is untrue,” read one part of the letter that managed somehow to be both a fragment and a run-on sentence.
Another section read, “Your client as an entity has also carelessly and perhaps allowed general slander and libel to the reputation of my clients by seeking out and/or reporting from those who did, individuals who falsely portray the reputation of Roy S. Moore in northeast Alabama, to include Etowah County.”
As you can see, the letter is itself an unholy mishmash of grammatical and stylistic errors. It also doesn’t make any sense. Not in English, anyway.
“Your client’s organization has made and/or supported defaming statements. This is due to the careless and/or intentionally refused to advance the truth regarding our clients,” reads another incomprehensible passage.
Yet another adds, “We also believe that your client, by and through its agents, have damaged our clients by being careless in how they handle headlines and report the contextual of the allegations,” and “Meaning your client has used terms in reports maliciously or carelessly which has falsely portraying our clients.”
Yes, as crazy as it seems, these are real, actual sentences that appeared in Garmon’s demand letter. This reads less like a forceful warning from a professional lawyer, and more like someone ran a series of Mandarin nursery rhymes through Google Translate and pasted the results to some lawyerly-looking stationary.
Roy Moore has practiced law for most of his adult life. He served as assistant district attorney for Etowah County for five years. After that, he served as a judge for the state’s Sixteenth Circuit Court, which led to him serving as 28th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama.
You’d think a guy with that sort of résumé could at least scrounge up some decent legal representation.
