You Don't Frighten Us, You Pig-Dogs and Sons Of A Silly Person

To all of you mourning and quailing and brooding about how to withstand the coming authoritarian storm, we present Mark Zaid, a heroic national security lawyer for whistleblowers who shows us a canny way forward. When his client, a former Pence aide, went on air to call conspiracist hack Kash Patel "a delusional liar" who'd trash the FBI, Patel - bullies gonna bully - threatened to sue her. In turn, Zaid slung the most sublime troll back at him. Monty Python's Trojan Rabbit lives!

In a foul pack of flunkeys and bootlickers to Trump, paranoid crackpot Kash Patel, "The Man Who Will Do Anything for Trump," has been "exceptional in his devotion." Despite little expertise, he rose rapidly in Trump's White House - "each new title set off new alarms" - and was so fanatical an alarmed Mark Milley once reportedly warned him, “Life looks really shitty from behind bars." So, a perfect fit for the new regime. The other day, he went on Steve Bannon's podcast - yes, he and it are still here - to call for "offensive operations" to jail Americans, government officials to media, the Great Orange One deems "the enemy." "We will go out and find the conspirators," Patel raved. "Yes, we are going to come after people in the media," all those radical scribblers who helped Biden "steal" the 2020 election. "We're going to come after you, whether criminally or civilly... We're putting you all on notice.” He seems nice.

After Patel's nomination to head the FBI, Olivia Troye, a former counterterrorism aide to Mike Pence, went on MSNBC to declare his "unfitness to serve." "Let me just be very clear about that," she said. "He would lie about intelligence. He would lie about operations." Citing a mission in Nigeria where she said Patel's incompetence "put the lives of Navy Seals at risk," she went on, "At some point I realized I need to check Kash’s work (so) I wasn’t misinforming Mike Pence...I had to go around him. This is a guy who openly has contempt for people in national security." At the FBI, Troye said there is fear from people "who know Patel is fully capable of just doing partisan investigations. It will be insane if he becomes director." After an outraged Patel and his hack lawyer demanded she publicly retract her comments or they'd sue her for meanness, Troye responded, "I stand by my statements."

Enter her attorney Mark Zaid, the founding partner of a rare, renowned practice focused on national security law, freedom of speech claims and government accountability. Zaid, who has represented many government or military whistleblowers with grievances against the entities they once served, cites the ongoing, critical need to "challenge the authority that controls this complex dark world." In 1998, he founded the James Madison Project, aimed at reducing government secrecy; he also teaches a D.C. Bar Continuing Legal Ed class on Freedom of Information, and is repeatedly named a D.C. "Super Lawyer" for his national security work. If Agent Mulder, the fictional FBI agent on the X Files ever needed a lawyer, a National Law Journal article once argued, "Zaid would be his man."

Recently, Zaid went on record personally advising possible targets of The Orange One's vengeance “take a vacation outside of the country" around inauguration time, at least for a while, "just to see what happens." "Hey, by the way, John Brennan, when you appeared on CNN in October 2023, what you said was classified and you're going to be prosecuted under the Espionage Act," he speculated. "Is that going to happen? I have no idea." After Patel's "conspirators" rant, Zaid wrote, "Trump is fulfilling his promises by nominating those who have publicly decried #RuleOfLaw & promised to literally jail political enemies." Up first, for Zaid, is his client Troye: Right on time, Zaid got a letter from Patel's lawyer repeating their threat to sue Troye if she did not "publicly detract her defamatory statements."

This is not, of course, Zaid's first rodeo. So he gleefully shot back a polite response - see below - topping it with this image of a jeering French knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He graciously added, "To answer your specific question as to Ms. Troye's intention, I think Monty Python expresses it best." LOL. In the memorable scene it's from - most of you know this, right? - King Arthur's Knights approach a castle seeking shelter; in exchange, they'll let the castle's master join their quest. Snubbing the offer, the Frenchman claims his master has a Grail - "I told them we already got one," he tells his giggling mates - before launching into a vicious flood of insults, also animals. "You silly king, you don't frighten us, English pig dogs!" he shrieks. "Go and boil your bottoms...I blow my nose at you, so-called Ah-thoor Keeng...I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!" Etc.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Except for the insane Frenchman and the flying cow and the Pythonesque mayhem they represent, Zaid's letter is entirely, by-the-books polite. "Dear Mr. Binnal," he writes. "Thank you for your letter dated Dec 4 regarding the threat of your client to file a lawsuit," blah blah blah. Of his client, he respectfully notes, "Many if not all her statements have been previously or similarly stated by a wide swath of the knowledgeable population." Adding, "Be that as it may," he points out, they have asked Troye to "confirm (her) intent" within five days of getting their letter, so here he promptly is. "As you know, I am personally well aware (of) your client's appetite to sue individuals, and your firm's proclivity to support such lawsuits," he writes; as proof of that awareness, he notes he has motions pending in two federal district courts seeking sanctions against them for their idiocy. Oh, the burn. #RightBackAtYa, you silly king.

Asserting he and his colleagues "fully expect many federal employees to become whistleblowers," Zaid also posted a request for donations to help them do so pro bono. Their non-profit, non-partisan legal organization Whistleblower Aid allows workers of conscience from both government and the private sector to "report government and corporate lawbreaking. Without breaking the law." And they're hiring. The first-listed job requirement: "An interest in justice, resilient democracy and corporate accountability." Ending his letter to Patel's lawyer, Zaid loftily notes, "I am reminded of the Italian proverb, 'A lawsuit is a fruit tree planted in a lawyer's garden.' I can only imagine the number of apples and oranges growing in your backyard. Whether they thrive or not, of course, is the question." He signs off, "With best wishes, Sincerely," etc etc. In other words, farting in your general direction.