Part 2: Lawsuits - Trouble on the Horizon for the Trump Administration

[CajunBlazer]

The way Donald Trump ran his business he became a lawsuit magnet. Since being sued by the Justice Department in 1973 for racial discrimination because he refused to rent to black tenants (he settled out of court) Trump has been involved well over 4,000 lawsuits. 75 remain open even as he is picking his cabinet. He just settled the Trump University suit which he claimed he could easily have won for $25 Million; obviously he didn’t want it want that case to go to trial. Of course those suits don’t include all of the women he has sexually assaulted who could file suits in the future. While it appears that a few of the 75 suits are frivolous cases with no merit, the other open suits include accusations of fraud, unpaid bills and sexual discrimination.

The Supreme Court has ruled (9-0) that a sitting President cannot avoid being subpoenaed to testify in a court case so the new President can be deposed and/or called as a witness in cases filled against him. Even more a danger is the threat of discovery which could lead to Trump having to reveal his business dealings around the world and/or he could deposed under oath with respect to the many sexual assaults of which he has been accused. Witness to those assaults might also testify in open court against him. The results of such law suits could range from embarrassment to impeachment.

Famed attorney Gloria Allred and her daughter Lisa Bloom who represent many of the women who have accused Trump of sexual assault have threatened Trump with these kinds of legal actions if he follows through with his campaign promise to sue their clients. According to the Daily Beast, Allred issued the following statement: “In that lawsuit I would take the deposition of Trump and all of his enablers, and subpoena his business and personal records as well as any recordings that may exist in which he brags about sexual assault, such as the Access Hollywood recording and potentially, the Apprentice raw footage.”

A woman filed suit in which she alleged Trump and his billionaire buddy, Jeffrey Epstein, raped her when she was 13 at a series of sex parties that Epstein threw in 1994. (Epstein is now a convicted pervert having served time for soliciting underage girls in 2008,) She had witnesses which included the person Epstein hired to recruit very young models for his parties. The plaintiff recently dropped the suit after receiving death threats, but it wouldn’t surprise me if similar charges are filled someday by other women after Trump takes office, if for no other reason then to get revenge for past sexual assaults by embarrassing him.

Some potential cases are yet to be filed. For instance the New York attorney general is investigating Trumps charitable foundation because Trump seemed to have used the organization as his personal piggy bank. Trump is said to have used money contributed to the foundation to pay his personal bills. The foundation is also said to have provided Trump with expensive gifts, again paid for with donated money, such as a portrait of himself. The investigation is also said be looking into whether the foundation solicited donations without permits to do so. These are all violations of New York law.

However, the law suits which will likely plague Trump throughout his Presidency may not all be centered on his behavior or that of his businesses and foundation. Trump has obviously chosen some of his cabinet member for the purpose of subverting the federal agencies they will head – Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier chosen to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Rep. Tom Price an enemy of Obamacare who is the choice to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Rick Perry, a former oil state governor who is to be Trump’s Energy Secretary.

If Trump and his administration try implement some of his more controversial campaign promises, they and the President are likely find themselves in court. The Democrats need only to follow the example of the Republican state attorney generals who sued President Obama dozens of times over his signature environmental, immigration and health care initiatives. Such suits could force the Trump administration to enforce existing laws and/or to tie Trump’s initiatives in legal knots for years.

Donald Trump has not only been sued many times over his long business career. He has also used the legal system as a club, suing or threatening to sue anyone who dared to oppose him and drain them financially as they tried to defend themselves against his high priced legal team. However, he is no longer the swashbuckling business man who used the courts has his private battlegrounds. As President of the United States, even the appearance of impropriety can be politically devastating and proven infractions of the law can lead to impeachment. Any legal proceeding Trump is engaged in while he occupies the White House will be far from pleasant.

Original article posted on my blog at CajunsComments.com:

Trouble on the Horizon for the Trump Administration - Part 2: Lawsuits

[CajunBlazer]

1. Kick for visibility

[Bayard]

2. Comrade Trump

The man has no problem with lying on a large scale. Rules and laws don't apply to him. So does anyone think he's not going to lie his ass off in court? If he ever makes it that far when he gets control of the Supreme Court.

[CajunBlazer]

4. Sure he is going to lie - in court that's called perjury

And perjury is a crime punishable by jail time. And in Trump's case, impeachment.

I am making the assumptions that the charges are valid and can be verified by solid evidence.

[Archae]

5. Are you kidding me?

A democrat president perjuring himself about getting nookie? IMPEACH!

A republican president perjuring himself over making money? "Oh, that's different!"

/s

[CajunBlazer]

9. So they don't impeach Trump after he perjures himself - even better

That way we get get control of both Houses of Congress too.

[femmocrat]

3. We can hope.

That NY Attorney General seems like an able foe of drumpf. I am looking forward to hearing more from him.

[CajunBlazer]

6. I think turnabout is fair play

As you will recall it was a group of Republican state attorney generals who tried to make Obama's life miserable by filling law suit after law suit against his ever initiative. I'm hoping that the NY attorney general will be the later of our litigious group.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

7. "...even the appearance of impropriety can be politically devastating"

The fact that he was elected at all should tell us that all this is about to change.

[CajunBlazer]

8. As President he will be held to a higher standard

Sure, zealous Trumpers love his BS, the majority of the American people have always held their President to a high standard. The people who made the difference in this election didn't vote for him because he held up his middle finger up to the American public, but despite the fact that he held up his middle finger to the America public; they were looking for better job opportunities and better pay. (More of why that isn't going to happen in a later installment of this series.)

If he keep up his BS, and of course he will, his popularity will drop substantially once he moves into the White House. Before the election Trump had a 39% favorability rating. Since the elections his ratings have improved slightly (Republicans getting on board with the Repupblican victor). They now stand at favorable 43%, unfavorable 50% (-7% in an average of the last 8 polls), but they still suck. Compare that Obama's ratings- favorable 54% Unfavorable 41% (+13%) and recall that it is usually the incoming President that high ratings.

By in large Americans are sick and tired of The Donald's BS and their tolerance will decrease over time. It is an act that has already grown stale. And the less favorably he is viewed, the less power he has to govern.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

11. I do very much hope you're right, but I think it is too late to stop the power grab

and radicalized Right takeover. I just don't see it mattering much whether or not people support the Trump administration, even if they are truthfully informed on what's happening, which they won't be. He had the outright racists, misogynists, homophones, and those who stand to gain financially from his presidency. But they alone were not enough. He needed those who voted against Clinton because they believed lies about her.

The vast RW propaganda machine has been working tirelessly over many years to create a world in which there is no objective reality. One of the first clues that they were getting away with this was the, "Not meant to be a factual statement" incident. Newt Gingrich infamously rejected facts on crime statistics, saying how people feel, not the facts, is what matters.

I fear that people are going to feel that whatever goes wrong in Trump's presidency will be that fault of the Democrats. And they'll feel that way for the same reason the people Gingrich referred to believe that crime is up, despite the actual statistics to the contrary: because that's what they will be manipulated to feel by the RW media.

Again, I'll be happy to be proven wrong, but I just don't have a lot of faith in that happening in this case.

[CajunBlazer]

12. My hope lies with those who are not biggoted who voted for Trump

Many people voted for Trump despite the despicable things he said and did on the campaign trail. They votes were based on hope and a desire for change in Washington. Well, there is going to be change alright, but I sincerely doubt it was the type they were hoping for.

I believe when those decent people find out that Trump cannot make good on his many promises because they were never realistic to begin with, they will turn on him. He will be left only with his bigoted true believers, and as you pointed out, they will not be enough to sustain him. Unless he completely changes his entire way of thinking (impossible), Trump's fall is preordained, and it won't be pretty.