Reelect President Trump or he’ll sue you
The president will see you in court. The Trump Justice Department sought an “emergency” court order to stop publication of John Bolton’s critical book after President Trump threatened his former national security adviser with “criminal problems” for divulging classified information. (It was denied.)
Also, Trump lawyers looked into the possibility of suing his niece, Mary Trump, the Daily Beast reported, for violating a nondisclosure agreement by writing a book subtitled “How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.”
Suing his own niece? Well, this is the man who had to renegotiate a prenup before his wife would move into the White House, The Washington Post’s Mary Jordan reports.
Trump’s campaign also sent a cease-and- desist letter to CNN over a national poll that showed Trump trailing his Democratic opponent Joe Biden by 14 points. (The Fox News poll shows Biden leading by 12.)
Trump had previously threatened to sue Facebook, which this week took down Trump-campaign ads because their use of a Nazi symbol for political prisoners violated Facebook’s “organized violence” policy.
Several weeks ago, Trump threatened to sue his own campaign manager, Brad Parscale, over his uphill reelection fight. (It was later suggested he was only joking.) Trump’s campaign has sued The Post, the New York Times and CNN, and Trump has threatened to sue Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Robert Mueller and “everyone all over the place” over the Russia probe.
Lately he’s been threatening to sue TV stations and a liberal group over ads criticizing his pandemic response. Trump has even threatened to sue China over the coronavirus, and his attorney general, Bill Barr, has threatened to take action against states and municipalities whose pandemic-mitigation orders are too strict.
Trump retweeted his son’s proposal that former Trump adviser Michael Flynn, “sue the FBI and it’s [sic] corrupt actors for all they’re worth.” Trump proposed that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh sue those who accused him of sexual misconduct, and he said somebody should sue the CIA whistleblower’s “ass off.” But why stop there?
A senior State Department official quit in protest of Trump’s response to civil rights protests; he’ll have to sue her. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo disparaged Trump’s diplomatic skills, according to Bolton; he must be sued, too. The Supreme Court this week dealt Trump defeats on gay rights (in a decision written by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch), gun rights and immigration - and Trump declared these “shotgun blasts into the face” of conservatives. He should sue the Supreme Court!
It has the potential to be the reelection message that so far has eluded Trump: Reelect me or I’ll sue you. He can threaten to sue each and every person who votes against him. At this point, it may be his best shot.
This could require filing nearly 100 million lawsuits. That’s a lot of paperwork. But he has appointed a lot of judges. And he has already been on the giving or receiving end of thousands of lawsuits, including his current attempts before the Supreme Court to keep his taxes hidden.
Since 2015, Trump, his business or the Republican Party have sued or threatened to sue MSNBC, NBC, the Associated Press, the Daily Beast, Univision, an anti-Trump T-shirt maker, authors Michael Wolff and David Cay Johnston, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), former Ohio governor John Kasich (R), a Jeb Bush supporter, a super PAC, the Republican Party, sanctuary cities, former aide Steve Bannon, former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, the U.S. Golf Association, a 92-year- old widow in Scotland, the women who alleged he sexually assaulted them, the co-author of his own memoir, the Club for Growth, the Culinary Workers Union, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the organizer of a “Dump Trump” campaign, the city of Minneapolis, and an artist who painted a nude of him.
Before that, he sued or threatened to sue the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, a Chicago Tribune architecture critic, Bill Maher, the now- deceased rapper Mac Miller, the Village Voice, ABC and the BBC, a random Twitter user, a woman critical of Trump University, a critic of his golf courses, a Miss USA contestant, Rosie O’Donnell, the Obama Justice Department, and the Onion.
Perhaps we can expect him to sue Tulsa health officials (for objecting to his mass rally), the defense secretary and Joint Chiefs chairman (for disloyalty), Biden (for earning a double- digit lead by doing nothing) and Jared Kushner (for messing up everything).
As campaign-finance watchdog Open Secrets reports, Trump’s campaign has spent more than $16 million on legal services, “using costly litigation in an attempt to crack down on negative news coverage and attack ads aired by his political rivals.”
And the Republican Party has already taken legal action in California and Michigan to restrict mail-in ballots and otherwise suppress voting.
If you can’t beat ‘em, sue ‘em.