how Donald Trump uses the courts to destroy his adversaries – L’Express

When Donald Trump received a daily fine of $1,250 in 2006 for planting on the lawn of Mar-a-Lago, his Florida club, a pole with the American flag 24 meters high, almost double the height of legal limit, he filed a lawsuit against the municipality of Palm Beach. A shorter mate, he asserts, would not express “the extent of his patriotism”. He is seeking $25 million in damages. After negotiations, he managed to keep his mast trimmed by three meters.

When the Architecture specialist of Chicago Tribune criticizes his project for a 150-story tower in Manhattan supposed to be the tallest in the world, he takes the daily to court and demands 500 million dollars in compensation. He also launches proceedings against Jules and Eddie, two South African real estate developers who have the bad taste to be called… Trump. He simply asks them to stop using their name. And he goes so far as to turn against one of his law firms saying that it took him for “a cash cow” and imposed excessive fees on him.

The New York billionaire never misses an opportunity to brawl in a courtroom. Recently, however, it is he who is in the dock and in no less than four criminal trials. The November presidential candidate is charged with illegally keeping classified documents, trying to manipulate the outcome of the 2020 election and falsifying documents in an attempt to hide a payment to a porn star during the 2016 campaign. This fraud trial is due to open on April 15 in New York. Stormy Daniels claims to have had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006 – which he denies – and received $130,000 in exchange for her silence.

This old story of adultery seems a little trivial next to the much more serious charges he faces. But this case has acquired enormous importance because it is undoubtedly the only one which will be judged before the November election. It has the advantage of being simpler than the other three processes. “There are no complicated questions of presidential immunity, executive power, classified documents, it happened before Trump was president, the accusations are clear, it’s a solid case”, comments the “anti-system” lawyer Ronald Kuby, a New York criminal lawyer specializing in defending the rights of citizens against the State.

For several decades, Donald Trump has used and abused the courts to put pressure on his adversaries. According to an analysis of USA Today, he and his companies have been involved in more than 4,000 legal proceedings since the 1980s. A “staggering” amount, said Bennett Gershman, a former prosecutor and law professor at Pace University. “I’m not aware of any person or company that comes even remotely close to that number.”

He had his share of defeats

The majority of legal actions concern its casinos, real estate investments and personal injury cases for clients or employees. The New York billionaire attacks individuals, including Ivana, his ex-wife, as well as companies, municipalities and even the Scottish government for having planted wind turbines near his golf course. Donald Trump has also been the subject of numerous lawsuits for sexual assault, racial discrimination, non-payment, money laundering… How many times has he emerged victorious? Difficult to say, because many files were settled by confidential agreement, even though he boasts of never negotiating. If you start, he says, “everyone attacks you.” One thing is certain: he has had his share of defeats over the years, even if he insists that he always wins.

“Many plaintiffs are looking to avoid a trial. They think it’s in their interest to negotiate so as not to have to suffer negative publicity. But Trump is formatted differently. He loves publicity,” adds Ronald Kuby. He pursues indiscriminately, including over trifles. When eight residents of his Doral golf course in Miami complained that the palm trees he planted blocked their view, he accused them of shearing the trees and demanded $15,000. He uses the courts as “a way to win, to score a point, to destroy or silence those who challenged him” and “to make headlines”, summarizes lawyer James Zirin in his book Chief Complainantan account of his legal adventures.

The ex-president “knows how the American judicial system works and knows how to masterfully maneuver it to his advantage,” declares Victor Kovner, a senior member of the New York bar. He relies on a list of lawyers who he constantly changes, probably because he regularly “forgets” to pay them. Some ended up in jail. Michael Cohen, one of his followers for a decade, pleaded guilty to violating, among other things, campaign finance law.

Donald Trump has no legal training, but his mentor was Roy Cohn, a stingy New York lawyer, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s right-hand man during the hunt for communists in the 1950s. In 1973, the Department of Justice Justice files suit against the Trumps, father and son. He accuses them of systematically refusing black and Puerto Rican tenants in the 14,000 housing units they manage. The promoter hires Roy Cohn, well known for his pit bull methods. “He carried out scorched earth tactics,” Victor Kovner further explains in the media. “His approach was: resist and gain time before negotiating at the last possible moment, when there were no other alternatives, once public attention had died down.”

He compares an adversary to the Gestapo

Instead of finding an agreement, Roy Cohn advises counterattacking by demanding 100 million in damages from the government for having falsely defamed them. The complaint is dismissed. He then drags out the proceedings and tries to discredit the opposing party’s lawyers, whom he compares to the “Gestapo”. He ended up agreeing to an amicable settlement. Donald Trump would later boast of having obtained “a minimal settlement without admitting his guilt”.

Since then, he has faithfully applied Cohn’s methods. His strategy is to deny everything even when the facts prove him wrong. He has never refused to return the classified documents that he illegally took when leaving the White House, he claims. When, after more than a year of futile negotiations with his lawyers, the FBI launched a search at Mar-a-Lago and seized boxes of files, the ex-president declared: “After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies , this unplanned raid on my home was neither necessary nor appropriate.”

Using systematic obstruction, he drags things out as long as possible by drowning his opponent in masses of baseless requests, appeals, appeals… In 1980, he hired a team of demolition workers on the Trump Tower construction site. At New York. Among them, 200 undocumented Poles. He makes them work twelve hours a day, in terrible conditions, at half the union rate. Finally, in 1998, after 15 years of proceedings, a trial and two appeals, he agreed to pay them $1.3 million.

Much more original, he has a habit of attacking judges, juries, prosecutors… “No one ever insults a judge in a legal case. It’s unprecedented and counterproductive”, Professor Gershman once explained . In 2005, Trump University opened with great fanfare. She promises to teach real estate investing techniques to become as rich as the developer. Thousands of individuals register. However, most instructors have no qualifications and the university is not accredited.

Eric Schneiderman, the New York prosecutor, is suing the billionaire for fraud. The latter, furious, calls him “stupid”, “an idiot” on Twitter. He accuses him of blackmail with the State Ethics Commission. Schneiderman allegedly promised to stop the prosecution in exchange for donations for his campaign (the prosecutor is elected). For lack of results, he attacks the judge as a “Mexican”, therefore “an enemy”. To his great dismay, he was ordered to pay the sum of 25 million dollars. Proof that he does not always triumph.

Pugnacious and chicanery

Often, however, it gains through wear and tear. In 2008, in the midst of the real estate crisis, he was unable to repay more than $700 million in loans taken out for the construction of a skyscraper in Chicago. When Deutsche Bank, his main creditor, was reluctant to grant him additional time, he took him to court and denounced his “usurious practices”! He is seeking a whopping $3 billion in damages. The bank in turn sued him before granting him a new deadline. Eventually, his creditors will forgive most of the debts, without seizing the skyscraper. No doubt to avoid an interminable legal battle with a pugnacious and quibbling Trump. Already ten years earlier in Atlantic City, its banks had repeatedly bailed out its bankrupt casinos and saved it from ruin.

The former president has a knack for discarding. In 2004, he partnered with a developer to build an apartment tower in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is “the most elegant and luxurious project I have created,” declared Donald Trump. In fact, he did not invest a penny in the construction, which is not mentioned in the sales prospectus. He secretly contented himself with lending his name in exchange for royalties. When the project goes bankrupt, the buyers take it to court. In vain. He is not responsible before the law since he just franchised his name.

The history of the charity golf tournament remains a model of its kind. In 1990, he promised a million dollars to the player who achieved a hole in one. Martin Greenberg achieves this feat on the 13th hole. The club, however, refuses to give him his price. The tournament regulations stipulate that the ball must travel 150 yards. But strangely the tee – the place where the player places his ball initially – was installed less than 150 yards away. Martin Greenberg hires a lawyer and ends up accepting… $158,000.

He deploys the big artillery

In an interview with USA Today A few years ago, Alan Garten, the legal director of the Trump group, justified the number of lawsuits: “We are a company with principles. When we think we are in the right, we continue until the end.” In many cases, the former president simply makes threats without going to court. This is generally enough to make less fortunate opponents give in.

Because he does not hesitate to deploy the big artillery, even against small fry. In his book Trump Nation, journalist Timothy O’Brien dared to assert in 2005 that he was not a billionaire. His fortune would be between 150 and 250 million. The real estate developer sees red. He demands that the book be withdrawn from sale, as well as an apology and a retraction of the defamatory remarks. When the publisher refuses, Trump demands 5 billion in damages. He will not win his case.

He continues to successfully apply the same tactics today. “Drawing things out to save time helped him enormously in the current procedures,” Victor Kovner explained. But the ex-president has rarely been in such a delicate legal situation. He owes nearly half a billion dollars in damages and faces four criminal cases for which a settlement cannot be reached. The trials still need to take place. “The justice system wants to be fair and based on rules,” concludes Ronald Kuby. “Is he capable of operating like this with Trump or is he just good at putting black people in jail?”