Of all the many lawyers employed by D.J. Trump over the years, I have enjoyed Michael van der Veen, Esq. the most!
Better than Roy Marcus Cohn, Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Jay Alan Sekulow. It is true that Sekulow has the most interesting, and varied, religious background of the group and the most fascinating institutional home, the highfaluting “American Center for Law & Justice.”
But “East, West, van der Veen Best!” In fact, the English translation of the Dutch “Veen” is “wet spongy ground of decomposing vegetation; has poorer drainage than a swamp; soil is unfit for cultivation but can be cut and dried and used for fuel [sic].” Indeed.
Counselor van der Veen is a member of the Philadelphia firm Van der Veen, O’Neill, Hartshorn, Levin which can be reached at www.mtvlaw.com, a catchy url unrelated to the teen sensation music cable station of the same name.
Michael took on the representation of Trump at the eleventh hour just before the start of the impeachment trial in the United States Senate. Even though he had no experience in constitutional law and very little time to become acquainted with the facts, Michael managed to be quite entertaining in exhibiting considerable mendacity and feigning high dudgeon in a voice that could be heard over in the House chamber without the use of amplification.
This guy has a set of lungs!
If you knew what was going to come out of the counselor’s mouth at any given time, you are a mind reader.
And I like someone who speaks with authority even if authoritatively wrong. The idea that proposed trial witnesses (there never were any) would have to be deposed in Michael’s office in “Phillydelphia” was as funny as Milton Berle in his heyday! (Where can you get a laugh in a solemn trial of an attempted violent prevention of the transfer of power to a duly elected president?)
And because he was so obviously a fish out of water, Michael had none of the stealth exhibited by Cohn, Cohen, Ellis, Powell, Giuliani, Sekulow et al, all of whom took themselves very seriously.
In a way, appearing before Senate beauties like Hawley, Cruz and Graham was easier than appearing before those snotty Philadelphia juries and fighting with those tightwad carriers with “nothing on the file.” And one thing is for sure: he will never again have to look at that cave of Washington egomaniacs!
Michael was the ultimate part-timer, on a joy ride in the Senate with a new client, hankering to get back to Philly and a great new tort, maybe even a “leg off” case!
And it helped him to know at the outset that he was going to win.