Showing posts with label Flees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flees. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Craig Sonner, George Zimmerman's Lawyer, Reportedly Flees Lawrence O'Donnell ... - Huffington Post

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

In a bizarre turn of events, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell interviewed an empty chair on his program Monday night, after scheduled guest Craig Sonner reportedly fled from an MSNBC studio in Orlando just moments before the show began.

Sonner represents George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood watchman who shot and killed 17-year-old Florida resident Trayvon Martin in February. His appearance on O'Donnell's program would have been just the latest in a string of high-profile media interviews over the past several days, as he's attempted to shift the narrative surrounding the case. In previous conversations, Sonner has continually insisted that the shooting was motivated not by race, but was instead a matter of self-defense -- though the attorney has declined to answer several questions about the specifics of his client's defense.

O'Donnell characterized Sonner's previous interviews as lacking in rigor, and claimed that it was his more aggressive approach to interviewing that scared the attorney away:

Craig Sonner has been the first guest in the history of this particular show, to get scared, to be terrified, so terrified of coming on this show that he has literally run away. He's in our car right now, taking him home from our studio, afraid to face the questioning he would face on this show. Watch out for wherever Craig Sonner shows up next on television, because wherever he shows up next on television has an obligation to put him through serious questioning about what he's doing and what he knows, and the contradictions in the things he's already said on television.

Later on during the segment, O'Donnell turned to Sonner's empty chair and began reciting the many questions he had planned for the aborted interview. Those questions included:

Watch the entire interview below:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Also on HuffPost:

Get Alerts

View the original article here

Zimmerman's Lawyer Flees, MSNBC's O'Donnell Interviews Empty Chair

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

RELATED: George Zimmerman's Defenders Come Out

Lawrence O'Donnell gave a hard-hitting interview to a piece of furniture on Monday night after Craig Sonner, the lawyer representing Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman, fled it and the MSNBC studio earlier in the evening before O'Donnell could actually talk to him.

RELATED: Who Are the Trayvon Martin Witnesses and What Did They Hear?

Having no interviewee present did not phase O'Donnell, who wanted to make the point that he wasn't going to be lobbing the kinds of softballs Sonner had gotten used to on other programs. That's how O'Donnell opened the segment, practically spitting out his words: "He knew these questions weren't going to be the questions he was facing everywhere else. He wasn't going to get out of here with an easy interviewer, he wasn't going to be let off the hook with his lawyerly questions."?

RELATED: Justice Department to Investigate Trayvon Martin Shooting

Indeed, O'Donnell did have some hard questions lined up, as he demonstrated later in the segment by berating Sonner's empty chair:

Who is paying you? Who hired You? When, exactly, did they hire you?Does George Zimmerman have a job? Does he have any property? Does he own anything?Did you represent him when he was arrested for assault on a police officer in 2005? Did you represent him in a domestic violence case in 2007 when his girlfriend accused him of assault?You said Zimmerman got a broken nose, can you show us photos of him that night with the broken nose, or even the next day?You said Zimmerman's clothes had grass stains and other evidentiary material ... do you have that garment, can you show us what happened to it?"

Hardball indeed! Sonner would probably have been unable to answer most of the questions, or evaded them, as he did with much simpler queries from Orlando's WFTV news earlier Monday?(unfortunately not embeddable). He said he hadn't met with Zimmerman, that Zimmerman was in hiding, that no evidence had been released to them "as far as I know." Sonner even said he hadn't heard the infamous?911 tapes that apparently reveal Zimmerman following Martin before shooting him. Sonner wouldn't even confirm that he was Zimmerman's lawyer, identifying himself instead as his "adviser." In fact, the only thing he did say is that Zimmerman stands by his self-defense claim, and that he's probably still in Florida. Honestly, the chair interview's more fun and about as informative.

RELATED: The Continued Politicization of the Trayvon Martin Case

Here's O'Donnell's interview with the chair (that comes at 6:38):

RELATED: Obama: 'If I Had a Son, He'd Look Like Trayvon'

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


View the original article here