The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website November 15, 2017:
News anchors appeared to be offended by attorney Trenton Garmon while discussing the allegations of sexual harassment against his client Roy Moore. (Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)
First there was the Alabama state auditor whose biblical defense of Roy Moore suggested that he hadn’t read the Good Book in some time. Then we had the Moore-supporting journalist who compared the sexual touching of a 14-year old to stealing a lawn mower.
Not content to let anybody else have the worst possible defense of Moore, Moore’s own lawyer stepped to the plate Wednesday. And he took a big swing.
Asked about Moore having allegedly asked mothers for permission to date their daughters, Trenton Garmon decided to invoke the “background” of Ali Velshi, one of the MSNBC hosts interviewing him.
“That’s a good question,” Garmon began. “And culturally speaking, I would say there’s differences. I looked up Ali’s background there, and wow that’s awesome that you have got such a diverse background. That’s really cool to read through that.”
It got no better from there.
When Velshi’s co-host, Stephanie Ruhle, asked what Velshi’s background had to do with the matter at hand, Garmon offered: “In other countries, there’s arrangement through parents for what we would refer to as consensual marriage.”
Ruhle noted twice that her brown-skinned co-host is from Canada. But Garmon, undeterred, pressed on: “And Ali’s also spent time in other countries … so it’s not a bad thing.”
Velshi is of Indian descent, but he was born in Kenya and grew up in Canada, after his family reportedly made brief stops in Pakistan, England and New York City, according to a 2009 profile in the Toronto Star. Garmon seemed to be referring to the tradition of arranged marriages in India, where Velshi has never lived.
It was only the most recent example of Garmon’s bizarre behavior. Conservative radio host Steve Deace tweeted out a letter Tuesday night from Garmon to a local Alabama news outlet demanding a retraction and threatening a defamation lawsuit. But the letter was riddled with misspellings and incoherent sentences and arguments.
And just last week, Garmon appeared on CNN and referred to host Don Lemon as “Don Lemon Squeezy Keep It Easy.”
The web site for Garmon’s law firm and a YouTube channel featuring videos of Garmon describe a practice that largely deals in personal injury cases, including “botched abortions.” A bio on the web site prominently features the fact that Garmon played college football at Troy University, including discussing the major schools and future NFL players the team played against. It also includes his having won a “pizza party” while serving as a cadet at West Point.
View the post here.