Donald Trump has just set a new record, of sorts, according to USA Today.
The paper did a tally of all of the lawsuits he and his company have been involved in and came up with 3500 — a number unprecedented for a Presidential candidate. ” No candidate of a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump’s courtroom entanglements,” the paper reports.
This means not only that he has been involved in a lot of lawsuits — but there’s a deep well of news stories for the news media, as it vets him as never before between now and election day. To wit:
Donald Trump is a fighter, famous for legal skirmishes over everything from his golf courses to his tax bills to Trump University. But until now, it hasn’t been clear precisely how litigious he is and what that might portend for a Trump presidency.
An exclusive USA TODAY analysis of legal filings across the United States finds that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his businesses have been involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts during the past three decades. They range from skirmishes with casino patrons to million-dollar real estate suits to personal defamation lawsuits.
The sheer volume of lawsuits is unprecedented for a presidential nominee. No candidate of a major party has had anything approaching the number of Trump’s courtroom entanglements.
Just since he announced his candidacy a year ago, at least 70 new cases have been filed, about evenly divided between lawsuits filed by him and his companies and those filed against them. And the records review found at least 50 civil lawsuits remain open even as he moves toward claiming the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in seven weeks. On Tuesday, court documents were released in one of the most dramatic current cases, filed in California by former students accusing Trump University of fraudulent and misleading behavior.
Does this matter? Without turning on the radio, TV, and reading some conservative pro-Trump blogs and hearing and reading the on-defense spin, let’s say yes, Rush, Sean, and some conservative writers it does indeed matter. Just as it is valid to take into account Hillary Clinton’s near politically negligent choice of using her personal email server for State Department business as a clue to her governing style, it is valid to look at this mind-boggling number of lawsuits and ponder what this suggests about Mr. Trump, one of the most confrontational and polarizing candidates in American history. It confirms the fears of many of his opponents about what this may say about how he’d behave in office.
The legal actions provide clues to the leadership style the billionaire businessman would bring to bear as commander in chief. He sometimes responds to even small disputes with overwhelming legal force. He doesn’t hesitate to deploy his wealth and legal firepower against adversaries with limited resources, such as homeowners. He sometimes refuses to pay real estate brokers, lawyers and other vendors.
So what will he do if he’s in the Oval Office with all that power?
As he campaigns, Trump often touts his skills as a negotiator. The analysis shows that lawsuits are one of his primary negotiating tools.
I.E. Confrontation. Brinksmanship.
He turns to litigation to distance himself from failing projects that relied on the Trump brand to secure investments. As USA TODAY previously reported, he also uses the legal system to haggle over his property tax bills. His companies have been involved in more than 100 tax disputes, and the New York State Department of Finance has obtained liens on Trump properties for unpaid tax bills at least three dozen times.
And despite his boasts on the campaign trail that he “never” settles lawsuits, for fear of encouraging more, he and his businesses have settled with plaintiffs in at least 100 cases reviewed by USA TODAY. Most involve people who say they were physically injured at Trump properties, with settlements that range as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars.Alan Garten, general counsel for the Trump Organization, said in an interview that the number and tenor of the court cases is the “cost of doing business” and on par with other companies of a similar size. “I think we have far less litigation of companies of our size,” he said.
However, even by those measures, the number of cases in which Trump is involved is extraordinary.
USA Today gives more details on that.
Trump’s near snarling reaction to the press at his press conference, his verbal abuse, his willingness to use legal brinksmanship and threats and his clear temperament issues indicate he’d be one of the most risky presidential candidates of all time to occupy the Oval Office. Trump has been vetted over the years, but once someone is close to or becomes a party’s presidential candidate a vetting like no other begins by the press. And, no, Bernie Sanders has not reached that stage yet but he would if he gets the Presidential nomination. I’m sure Trump’s background will give the press a lot of interesting stories to report between now and election day.
Which won’t matter to Sean, Rush and some conservative websites but might mean quite a bit to independent voters and Republicans who aren’t ready to see the Republican Party become the Trumpublican Party, and sit back and watch the Party of Lincoln forever “schlonged.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.