Trump Should Hire The Cat Lawyer
So what’ll it be today? A blow by blow of Trump Impeachment II?
Or the cat lawyer?
All righty, then. Cat lawyer it is.
I don’t know about you, but I watched the impeachment trial in short spurts Tuesday, alternately bored and concerned for the state of Trump’s legal team.
The former president might have been better off hiring Rod Ponton to defend him. Ponton’s performance as a cat was far superior to the impeachment defense team in the Senate.
Chances are, if you’re on social media you saw this. If not, have a look. I guarantee you won’t watch it just once:
Seems Mr. Ponton, arguing in a civil forfeiture case in the Texas’ 394th Judicial District court by way of Zoom, made the mistake of using his legal assistant’s computer instead of his own.
Turns out, his assistant’s daughter had been on the computer earlier, playing with what looks like a feline Snapchat filter.
As the hearing got underway, Mr. Ponton burst onto the screen as a bug-eyed white cat. The cat took on his voice and that of the judge in the case, with its eyes tracking Ponton’s eyes as he frantically tried to figure out how to kill the cat.
Perhaps the most comical aspect of the virtual SNAFU was how the other lawyers barely reacted to the cat on their call.
Ponton offered to go forward with the hearing as a feline, while noting “I am not a cat.”
“I can see that,” the judge replied.
CNN later interviewed Judge Roy B. Ferguson about the incident:
"It did actually happen. There was no joke involved," Ferguson told CNN via phone.
The Zoom filter was removed within seconds of that moment, Ferguson said. He added that he walked the lawyer through how to turn it off.
"When a child had been using the computer, (the child) turned on a filter," he said. "Of course, the lawyer would have no reason to even know that feature exists."
"If you watch carefully, no one mocked him or laughed at him," Ferguson said. "It just showed the professionalism and the dignity that these lawyers bring to virtual hearings."
Ferguson used his Twitter account to give the world a public service announcement about using Zoom.
"If a child used your computer, before you join a virtual hearing check the Zoom Video Options to be sure filters are off. This kitten just made a formal announcement on a case in the 394th “ he wrote on Twitter.
The judge, via Twitter, gave permission for the media to use the clip because he believed it cast a spotlight on the excellence of the Texas judicial system.
For his part, Ponton told The New York Times that when he realized he was a cat in the Zoom hearing he was “mortified.”
Later, after the clip had been viewed millions of times, the cat lawyer saw the humor in it.
“If I can make the country chuckle for a moment in these difficult times they’re going through, I’m happy to let them do that at my expense,” Ponton told the New York Times.
Thank you, Mr. Ponton. America owes you.
