'Pathetic' Trump court pick buried on MS NOW for 'tap-dancing' answers before Senators

A Donald Trump attorney who was nominated for a lifetime appointment on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was lambasted by MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire on Thursday morning for being afraid to admit President Joe Biden beat Trump in 2020.

On Wednesday, Justin Smith was grilled by Democrats sitting on the Senate Judiciary Committee and, in an exchange with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), was asked, “Who won the popular vote in the 2020 election?“

Smith blandly replied, “January 2021 was when Congress counted the Electoral College votes and certified Joe Biden as the president,” to which the Democrat shot back, “So you're not going to answer my question.”

Smith later complained, “I want to dispute that you said these were rehearsed or canned answers. These are my answers. These are the legally correct answers,” and was asked, “Okay. So you are aware that President Trump continues to assert that he won the 2020 election?"

"I'm aware that President Trump has a lot of views on the 2020 election,” the young attorney deflected.

After the clip was shown, Lemire began, “So that was attorney Justin Smith, a former personal lawyer to President Trump and now his nominee for a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court. And you just heard it: He was tap-dancing around questions from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee about the 2020 election.”

Introducing MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin, the obviously disgusted Lemire continued, “That also was a sort of a pathetic display. But that kind of pathetic display is exactly what this president wants.”

“Absolutely,” Rubin agreed. “ What this president wants. And put aside the fact that Justin Smith came to yesterday's conversations with the kind of credentials that you would expect any conservative legal nominee to have — those might be objectionable for many people — but that's not the part of it that I think folks were trying to draw attention to yesterday.”

"It's the fact that he couldn't answer a question about who won the 2020 election and then compounded by the fact, as you noted, that Justin Smith has personally represented this president in two major cases,” she reported. “Not only did he work with [Solicitor General] John Sauer on the presidential immunity case that went to the Supreme Court, but he currently represents President Trump before the Supreme Court in his appeal of the E. Jean Carroll verdict that would make him one of three nominees by President Trump since he came back to office, who has personally represented him out of a total of nine.”

Lemire concluded the segment by dryly pointing out, "We'll just note for Mr. Smith, in case he's wondering: Joe Biden won the 2020 election."

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