In God's Name?

Jesse Wigman wrote an editorial published in The New York Times on October 28, 2023 that addresses how a widespread failure of ethics within the legal profession not only originated the Trump election fraud but abetted it across multiple states and in Congress itself.

Trump's Lawyers Should have Known Better

The piece starts by recounting how similar concerns were raised after so many Nixon Administration lawyers were convicted in the Watergate scandal and triggered law schools to introduce required courses in ethical behavior. The question then asked by one of Nixon's own lawyers, John Dean, was "How in God's name could so many lawyers get involved in something like this?"

Precisely...

No, seriously. THAT'S THE ANSWER.

In God's name.

Jenna Ellis had this to say via social media on August 15, 2023 after being indicted in Georgia:

The Democrats and the Fulton County DA are criminalizing the practice of law. I am resolved to trust the Lord and I will simply continue to honor, praise, and serve Him. I deeply appreciate all of my friends who have reached out offering encouragement and support.

Continue to honor, praise and serve Him?

Jenna Ellis had this to say to the judge on October 18, 2023 while submitting her guilty plea in the case:

Thank you your honor for permission to address the court. As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously and I endeavor to be a person of sound moral and ethical character in all of my dealings. In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, I believed that challenging the results on behalf of President Trump should be pursued in a just and legal way. I endeavored to represent my client to the best of my ability. I relied upon others, including lawyers with many more years of experience, to provide me with true and reliable information, especially since my role involved speaking to the media and legislators in various states. What I did not do but should have done, your Honor, was to make sure the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were, in fact, true. In the frenetic pace of attempting to raise challenges in several states, including Georgia, I failed to do my due diligence. I believe in and I value election integrity. If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse. For those failures, I have taken responsibility already before the Colorado Bar who censured me and I now take responsibility before this court and apologize to the people of Georgia.

A few days after pleading guilty, Jenna Ellis tacked on the following comment to a Bible quote in a social media post on October 25, 2023:

My faith is central to who I am and my sole identity. I will continue to share the truth of the Gospel of Christ and the biblical worldview on my radio broadcast and podcast, which I consider a ministry. This verse promises that God is always faithful and is the same yesterday, today, and forever..

Continue to share the truth?

The story doesn't look much better for Sidney Powell. Here is the link to the first story that appears in search results for "Sidney Powell Christian":

I Know Sidney Powell is Telling the Truth

Note that link points to a website acting as a trading hub of ideas for Christian ministers – the US Pastoral Council – and the actual commentary came from a different evangelical website called The Stream. This material is being passed around not only by the rank and file evangelical "sheep" but the "shepherds." Here's an excerpt:

Back in 2014, I worked freelance for a public relations firm in New York City. It was there that I met an unusual woman. I didn’t know many lawyers or Texans, but I knew better than to chalk up her qualities to either her profession or her home. It’s rare that I encounter someone who I’m afraid to argue with, because of her sheer brain power and towering personal rectitude. But this was such a person.

(snip)

I don’t have any evidence that Democrats used software invented in Venezuela to help socialist dictator Hugo Chavez steal elections. Or that the Soros-linked company Dominion was used by Democrats across multiple states to steal votes from Donald Trump to give to Joe Biden in the middle of the night, in just the strategic states where Trump was leading.

I don’t have that evidence, but the fact that Sidney Powell claims she does is enough to convince me. This is a woman who gave up years of income she could have earned in her profitable practice to write, print, and promote a book no publisher would touch. Its charges were too explosive, I imagine.

Well, with logic like that, it's no wonder thirty percent of the country has been lost to this flawed thinking. It's not thinking at all. It's transitive insanity. And the biographical blurb at the end of that article shows this willful know-nothingism isn't just focused on election law.

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream, and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of God, Guns, & the Government.

In the case of Ken Chesebro, the story is a bit more mysterious. A review of his career indicates an abrupt change between 2014 and 2016. Prior to 2016, he had been a registered Democrat, had been married since 1994 and had operated his own law firm working off and on for various Democratic causes. The only flag multiple acquaintances can point to as a turning point is Chesebro's early $2200 investment in Bitcoin in 2010 which by 2014 was worth over $19 million dollars. He divorced his wife, moved to Puerto Rico, began donating money to Republican candidates and doing legal work for conservative issues beginning in 2016. Maybe Chesebro just eliminated the normal middleman and just focused directly on Mammon.

Why does evangelicalism seem to predisposition one to failures of due diligence?

Could it be that personification of ideas one fails to fully grasp into an invisible presence who hands out brownie points in the hereafter for doing its bidding in the here and now without asking any questions conditions one to ignore reality? Could it be that "faith" conditions one to dismiss the cognitive dissonance created when acts one performs blatantly contradict ethics one professes to follow because those acts serve some eternal purpose set forth by the voice no one else can hear but the faithful?

Or does fervent evangelicalism simply serve as a useful excuse to practice the ethics of the extenuating circumstance, allowing one to pick and choose actions every day based on convenience, comfort and riches and chalk up any contradictions to the mysteries of faith?

So-called evangelicals would be much better off for their own good spending LESS time preaching to the rest of us about what they BELIEVE and spending MORE time objectively analyzing the facts of a complex world that surround them. At a minimum, there are a few that would have spent a lot less on legal bills. The rest of us would be far better off if people spent more time pondering what can be KNOWN than what someone else tells them to BELIEVE.

WTH