Sullivan & Cromwell co-chair Bob Giuffra is working his way up the MAGA hierarchy. Yesterday, he was spotted by Business Insider’s Jacob Shamsian on the Second Circuit argument within the E. Jean Carroll defamation case the place the president’s attorneys have 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* characterize the president — Sullivan & Cromwell is handling Trump’s attraction of his hush cash conviction. Although that’s… not this case.
This left plenty of observers questioning: what the hell was Giuffra doing there?
Giuffra’s time may be very beneficial — right 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 problem in Giuffra’s case, however the oral arguments are available online. If “conserving abreast of developments in presidential immunity jurisprudence” was all Giuffra cared about, he may tune in on-line and save himself the journey time (on one of many hottest days of the yr, no much less).
However I’ve to surprise simply how this schmoozing goes down at S&C. There was plenty of internal 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 attorneys as well!) had an actual method 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 judge had to repeatedly clarify that the trial “conclusively set up[ed] that Mr. Trump did, forcibly and with out her consent, penetrate Ms. Carroll’s vagina together 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 Legislation, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are one of the best, so please join along with her. Be happy to electronic mail her with any ideas, questions, or feedback and observe her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].
