This came to my mind today as I was watching the breaking news that the Biden White House had declined former President Trump’s claims of executive privilege on a large tranche of documents requested by the January 6th committee from the National Archives. Of course Trump is expected to sue over executive privilege in court.
Which started me thinking. We all know that Trump is the King of the Losers. He lost the popular vote twice, and the electoral college once. He is the only President in history to be impeached twice. A House panel just released a report that rather than Trump’s DC hotel making hundreds of millions, it actually lost $70 million during his presidency. And the bottom line for his third rate company has been death by a thousand cuts ever since he took the oath.
But Trump is also one of the biggest losers in the world when it comes to court battles. In his post election suit-a-palooza, Trump went 0-61. He lost suits trying to claim privilege to keep aides like Don McGahn from testifying in front of committees. Trump couldn’t even win in front of a Supreme Court where he personally selected 3 of the justices. And pre presidency, he lost his Trump U case, as well as his Trump charity case, costing him tens of millions of dollars.
Here’s my point. Far from being over, Trump’s legal troubles are just beginning. Trump is going to have to file a privilege lawsuit in federal court to stop the document transfer. But we’re just getting started. Trump has already ordered former aides Meadows, Scavino, Bannon, and Patel to defy committee subpoenas under a privilege claim. Which means that he’s going to have to file another privilege lawsuit to give them ground cover. And every time that the committee makes another subpoena drop, Trump is going to have to file another privilege suit to try to stall it. You do the math.
But it isn’t just new shit, there’s plenty of old shit left to go around too. Summer Zervos got the judicial go ahead for her civil suit against Trump to proceed to discovery. So did the defamation law suit from the New Yorker journalist. Trump is also being sued in civil court by Capitol Hill officers for being responsible for the injuries they suffered on January 6th. And he has a team of legal beagles busy in New York fighting the criminal investigation into his criminal organization, and another team trying to fight off a potential criminal case stemming from possible election interference in Fulton county Georgia.
These lawsuits all have two things in common. First, they all require lawyers. And second, they all cost a shit load of money. And in addition to being the world’s biggest loser, Trump is also the world’s biggest legal deadbeat. Based on the last report I saw several months ago, the vast majority of Trump’s legal whores have him on a strict Pay-as-you-go-plan. They all soaked him for massive retainers just to take him on, and they have him on strict quarterly billing plans, with rock solid drop-dead-dates. If he’s 5 minutes late with a payment, they shut him down, and withdraw from the cases they’re working on.
See why this fascinates me so much? Trump spent his entire adult life as the self proclaimed King of Litigation, although he in reality seldom actually sued, and usually then only against lenders he owed money to, as a stall tactic. Instead, he used the threat of litigation to browbeat vendors, smaller tradesmen, service providers, and individuals whom he ripped off by paying pennies on the dollar on contracts he signed for services. He threatened to break them by tying them up in court for 100 years. The few times they took the chance, they inevitably won.
But now, for the first time in his life, Trump isn’t driving the truck. There people whom he has callously wronged that are actually suing him for millions of dollars, he has no choice but to hire lawyers to defend him. And he’s facing criminal charges in a state with their own paid lawyers, as well as a US Attorney’s office in New York, as well as the New York Attorney General, and a US House committee with an entire Justice Department to speak for it. And has to have lawyers for all of them, and it’s only going to get harder for him to pay for them all. What goes around, comes around.
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
Sure hope former guy isn’t surprised by the legal community wanting their money either up front or ASAP quarterly. After what he did to Rudy you’d think he’d expect it or one of his kids would explain it to him in one syllable words.
The only question remaining is when will he run out of $$$?
He’s got assets he can sell but some, if not many are underwater. Cash flow has been a problem for him for decades and grifting MAGA goobers for donations has been his lifeline. Larger donors have helped too but I suspect are increasingly disinclined to write him large checks. What blows my mind at the moment is that given his history of suing banks he owes when they try to hold him to his payment terms is that in the past week I saw Chase Manhattan had refinanced a large loan with him. And in the process given him a lot of sudden liquidty. The number 160 million in extra cash on hand sticks in my mind. That will certainly pay for a lot of good lawyers, but given how many serious legal problems he has across so many fronts it will get eaten up quickly. I recall that by the end of his Presidency Bill Clinton owed more than ten million in legal fees and when you consider that number keep two things in mind – first that Clinton’s legal problems were limited compared to Trump’s and second that ten million then isn’t worthy nearly as much as ten million now.
Add in all of that and now he might be facing legal problems internationally. Specifically over in Scotland that Minister who has to date refused to issue a wealth order to determine the source of the funds Trump used (sixty million) to buy Turnberry (well over it’s value btw) is under increasing pressure. Trump isn’t at all popular in Scotland to begin with and the Scottish official(s) who have been covering his ass might themselves have some explaining to do. After all, Trump was drowning in red ink when he forked over the whole amount in cash to buy an iconic property!
Anyway I think he’s going to at some point get squeezed. He’s already looking at upwards of a half-billion in loans coming due in the next couple of years, fighting to hold on to the properties he already has and losing management contracts of properties on a steady basis, and lawyers (especially the ones overseas) are demanding hefty retainers upfront. My guess is that he will start trying to stiff his lawyers starting in the next six months or so – probably by sending MAGA nation after them to terrorize them, their families and law partners into working for him for free. THAT could get interesting because if they are (and it seems they are) smart enough to demand retainers upfront (and more when money runs out before continuing) then they are smart enough to collect “receipts” of threats. And skilled enough to get Trump to blow his top and make overt ones. Privilege doesn’t apply when a crime is involved and blackmail/extortion and overt threats of harm are felonies!
He’s been living on royalties for decades while pretending to be a billionaire. I suspect that he’s actually been broke or close to it for at least a decade; otherwise he wouldn’t have put so much effort into PR and making sure he got paid for everything, even stuff he didn’t own.
There’s a term for people like Trump that pre-dates him getting control of daddy’s company. Highly Leveraged. What it means in the financial/lending world is institutions owed a great deal of money by someone like Trump will often make some type of deal to keep them afloat in the hopes of getting enough of their money back to avoid taking a hit on their own ledger. The thing with Trump is that reputable financial institutions realized over twenty years ago that he was going to welsh on them no matter what. But he had the sleazy side of Deutsche Bank (the part that has racked up record fines for money laundering Russian money) and from all indications money being funneled from Russia. Western institutions have hoped they’d get their money back, but have as I said resisted giving him more which makes Chase reworking his loan all the more remarkable. Seems to me like that’s something the U.S. Attorney should take a look at.
If I were those lawyers, I’d have witnesses on every call. Remember that his lawyers have worked in pairs in the past, so they could back up their own statements when he lied about what he’d said to them.
Excellent commentary!!!
Music to my ears.
Memo to anybody who ever doubted me when I said he was never getting away with anything: told you so.
I never doubted you. You had it right!
He’s not yet in jail. Having to pay fines doesn’t count since he’s still stealing tens of millions. Until he’s arrested, he has gotten by with more crimes longer than anyone I’ve ever seen other than the zodiac killer. Narcissists don’t care what anyone says or does. That doesn’t count either.
I think there is at least one more civil suit, E Jean Carroll. I don’t think that one was mentioned. I agree with all the opinions put forth and just LOVE the fact of how his lawyers are keeping short tabs with him. His options are closing in on him.
“Trump couldn’t even win in front of a Supreme Court where he personally selected 3 of the justices.”
Just a corrective note but I seriously doubt Trump had ANYTHING to do with the naming of those three justices. The Federalist Society gave him a list of names *they* wanted on the Court (I wouldn’t doubt the list had the eventual appointee’s name in super big letters and highlighted in yellow with a note to the side reading, “This is the name we want now”) and he just took the name he was supposed to choose.
That’s probably part of the reason that “his” Court selections didn’t support his suits; they served a “higher master” than Donald Trump.
I hope everybody worried about Trump having enough money to pay for all these Legal problems stops and considers why they just sued to get him back on Twitter. That was done solely for his new PAC to cry he needs money for that suit, and it will raise a ton of money.
The thing I hate is that woman Liz Harrington is STILL posting his shit on Twitter every day! He’s not really OFF twitter. fucker.