How many law suits has Donald Trump instigated in his career?
Couple of hundred? A Thousand ? Three Thousand ? Keep going..
A long, long time ago,2019 actually, a former Federal Prosecutor researched Trumps litigation history. Fascinating story of a businessman who used the courts as a weapon. His chief armourer was Roy Cohn who was one of the most ruthless and unethical lawyers who ever stamped the legal field. (You have to read the interview to check out why he was finally disbarred
)
Anyway it is worth checking out the interview. It offers a great insight into Trump the litigator.
The problem for Trump now is that these are criminal not civil cases . Makes a
huge difference in what he can get away with.
Legal Writing
Trump and his 3,500 suits: Prosecutor and author reveals in interview his portrait of 'Plaintiff in Chief'
By Robin Lindley
April 20, 2020, 8:49 am CDT
President Donald Trump. Photo from Shutterstock.com.
While Donald Trump had no experience in working in government or in public service when he became president of the United States, he brought an astounding history of involvement in thousands of lawsuits to the nation’s highest office. Former federal prosecutor and author James D. Zirin illuminates more than 45 years of Trump’s legal disputes in his new book,
Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits, published in September 2019.
As a federal prosecutor, Zirin spent decades handling complex litigation. He’s also a self-described “middle-of-the-road Republican.”
Plaintiff in Chief is not a partisan screed but a carefully documented legal study.
In his book, Zirin scrupulously details Trump’s life in courts of law. Based on more than three years of extensive research, the book examines illustrative cases and how they reflect on the character and moral perspective of the current president. Zirin references page after page of court records and other evidence to illustrate Trump’s legal maneuvering.
As Zirin points out, Trump learned how to use the law from his mentor, notorious lawyer Roy Cohn. Trump took Cohn’s scorched-earth strategy to heart.
“Trump saw litigation as being only about winning,” Zirin writes. “He sued at the drop of a hat. He sued for sport; he sued to achieve control; and he sued to make a point. He sued as a means of destroying or silencing those who crossed him. He became a plaintiff in chief.”
Zirin argues that Trump has shown a chronic scorn for the law. “All this aberrant behavior would be problematic in a businessman,” he writes. “But the implications of such conduct in a man who is the president of the United States are nothing less than terrifying.”
Zirin is an accomplished litigator who has appeared in federal and state courts around the nation. He was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York under then-U.S. Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau.
His other books include
Supremely Partisan: How Raw Politics Tips the Scales in the United States Supreme Court and
The Mother Court: Tales of Cases That Mattered in America’s Greatest Trial Court. His articles have appeared in array of publications.
Zirin recently answered some questions—from Robin Lindley, a Seattle-based writer and lawyer—on his study of Trump, by telephone from his office in New York.
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