Piece on 4,000-suit loser needed ‘edits’

Trump and his various companies, all of which were either dismissed, withdrawn or arbitrated.

In one case, Trump sued Bill Maher in 2013, after the TV host joked he would give $5 million to charity if the mogul provided his birth certificate to prove he is not “the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.”

Trump sent Maher a copy of the document and a letter directing Maher where to donate the money, and when Maher didn’t follow up, Trump sued him for “breach of contract.”

Using that, and five other examples, the ABA article went on to call for stronger laws that limit “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” Under such socalled “anti-SLAPP” laws, defendants in certain libel suits may seek early dismissal and can recover some legal fees.

The ABA document was first revealed by The New York Times, which also reported the ABA had refused to publish it over concerns Trump would sue.

The Media Law Resource Center, a First Amendment law nonprofit based in New York, eventually posted the report.

The ABA disputed that the group had “refused to release the article,” claiming instead that various staff members had only recommended edits, some of which were aimed to avoid “the possibility that it would attract a meritless lawsuit.”

Carol Stevens, a spokeswoman for the ABA, told the Daily News that the article, as it was originally submitted by author Susan Seager, a former journalist and current First Amendment lawyer, “did not reflect the nonpartisan nature of the ABA.”

“After the article was submitted to the ABA, some individuals raised some concerns about it, and we looked at it as part of a normal editing process and suggested some minor edits,” she told The News.

But internal communications from ABA Deputy Executive Director James Dimos, revealed worries over the article’s “ad hominem” and “partisan attacks” as well as the potential it could create for a Trump lawsuit.

“Such language transforms a legitimate scholarly article into a partisan attack,” Dimos wrote in an Oct. 19 email.