How Sidney Powell's legal team just clowned a huge chunk of right-wing media, a thread. /1
If you're Powell's lawyers, you've got a huge challenge. You have a client who spent weeks stating provable falsehoods that were amplified and spread to millions of Americans through some of America's most popular outlets for news and commentary. Not great. /2
You can't admit to the lie. That would essentially admit "actual malice." So, what are you left with? Let's call it the "obviously crazy claim defense." In other words, her claims might LOOK like factual assertions, but they're so over-the-top they're really something else. /3
Here's how it works. There are different kinds of false factual assertions. There are truly potentially damaging lies ("David was convicted of drunk driving") and obviously wild and insane accusations ("David thinks original Justice League is better than the Snyder Cut."). /4
The first lie has the potential to sting. But the second lie is so absurd it's silly to call it a lie. It's just "rhetoric" or "hyperbole" or something like a playground insult. Yeah, I can prove I didn't like original Justice League, but so what? No one believed I did. /5
In other words, the argument isn't that Powell's lying. It's that she was OBVIOUSLY making wild claims. They're saying, "C'mon man. She might believe it, but no reasonable person does." But that's implicitly tossing a ton of right-wing media figures under the bus. /6
For weeks they were broadcasting the claims of a person who her own lawyers say was making claims that "no reasonable person would conclude" were "truly statements of fact." Great job y'all. No, really. /7
And to think, lots of these folks make piles of money critiquing "the media" while they spewed oceans of BS into the public square--BS that Powell's own lawyers argue was objectively unreasonable to believe. Pathetic. /end
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