CUT! Stephanopoulos Caught in Throat-Slitting Gesture to End Trump Lawyer Talking

January 24th, 2020 11:30 AM

Shortly after 3 pm Eastern time on Thursday afternoon, the conservative blog Ace of Spades noted ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos was caught on camera making the slit-the-throat "kill" gesture to cut away from Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow taking press questions. They were nice enough to add "Hopefully MRC or someone will have it later." Challenge accepted. My video tweet made the rounds. 

Sekulow was being asked a fairly typical hardball about how Sen. Lindsey Graham, Alan Dershowitz, and Attorney General Barr had disagreed with the argument that "abuse of power" was not an impeachable offense. 

JAY SEKULOW: We’ve got something very different from what you’re hearing up here. You're hearing video clips of testimony.  We’ve got lawyers that will be put forward when our side of the case goes that represents multiple schools of thought on what is an impeachable offense,” the president’s personal attorney continues. “They have one thing in common: that the actions alleged and the actions of the president do not reach that level — no matter which school of thought you’re on. e’re not afraid to put out both of those schools of thought because our position is you still have to meet basic, fundamental constitutional obligations and they haven’t. Next?

As Sekulow leaned in to hear the next question, Stephanopoulos was caught making the cutthroat gesture. He turned to the ABC panel of liberals and said Sekulow was making a new argument, that "whatever constitutional interpretation you have, they're going to say it's not an impeachable offense."

Then came the typical liberal rebuttal, from ABC contributor Kate Shaw, a former Obama aide: "I think they're trying to figure out how they're going to respond to what was a powerful presentation, particularly by Chairman Nadler, on the Constitution and the law."

One would think ABC would want to air footage of Trump lawyers taking hard questions from liberal journalists. But that's apparently just too much pro-Trump talk.