I Should Know Better 😇 🍿

NEW: Donald Trump has filed a $49 million lawsuit against journalist Bob Woodward and Woodward's publisher for selling recordings of his interviews as an audiobook, claiming he agreed to be taped but not for public release. With @MarioDParker: https://t.co/pGcVttR69l pic.twitter.com/uVlVywbQdh

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) January 30, 2023

But given the caliber of Trump’s legal representation:

Trump attorney goes on wild 'fake president' rant: 'They' are trying to 'enslave everybody' https://t.co/fqtnuZ0T4t

— Raw Story (@RawStory) January 30, 2023

They are trying to take over the world and enslave everybody," she said, likely referring to liberals. "That is wrong; it's un-American, and it goes against everything our Constitution stands for." 

"We will get Donald Trump back in office," she added. "At that point, I think we need an investigation into who actually overthrew the United States government to install a fake president?"

I think I’m safe in assuming this lawsuit doesn’t state some novel legal theory that’s likely to prevail against common sense.

In this case, the fairly simple argument that Trump agreed to being taped, but somehow had “King’s’X’” against the tapes being published. First, I’m pretty comfortable in asserting Trump needs to show an affirmative (legalese for “actual”) agreement not to publish the tapes. A simple "I never said he could" does not suffice.  Moreover, Trump agreed the tapes would be used for a book (this is the basis for his argument that the tapes could not be published). Then what if Woodward had simply published transcripts of the tapes? Would that be substantively different from the act complained of? How?

I'm pretty sure it unravels from there.  I would be less sure if Christina Bobb wasn't one of his attorneys, and if he didn't just waste a great deal of money and judicial resources in a futile attempt to get the DOJ to return the seized documents to him that ended in such a harsh rebuke from the appellate court against the trial judge I'm surprised they didn't levy sanctions against her (I think they would have if they could have). Not to mention the suit that did end in sanctions for Trump and his attorney, and the suit he withdrew because the court warned it considered that suit as frivolous as the other.

Let's just say his legal track record is really, really not good.

Adding: this morning brings further proof Trump’s Roy Cohn games have run their course:

The New York attorney general asks a judge to sanction Trump, his eldest children, and their attorneys for their responses in legal filings, including allegedly false statements that contradict previous sworn testimony.

— Kara Scannell (@KaraScannell) January 31, 2023

Precedent is not only set by published appellate court opinions. Something courts are reluctant to do can become more likely when the same parties try the same stunts too many times.

Since then, he’s deployed tactics he learned from Roy Cohn, often - according to people who worked with him - trying to find lawyers or judges he thought would be favorable to him https://t.co/SJl7wTRfsJ

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 31, 2023

Those tactics work against private parties who are paying lawyers to go to court. As I’ve said before, Trump is facing governments, who have lawyers just for this kind of thing. Cohn’s tactics don’t work now (the federal Fair Housing case Trump and Daddy list decades back is a case in point). And courts are conservative: they don’t like to do what hasn’t been done before. But if one court sanctions the party(ies) for egregious behavior, it becomes easier to seek similar sanctions elsewhere.

🍿