Donald Trump routinely threatens people with lawsuits, but rarely follows through.
GOP candidate rarely follows through, but threats can be chilling
Say something bad about Donald Trump and he will frequently threaten to go to court. “I’ll sue you” was a Trump mantra long before “Build a wall.” But an analysis of about 4,000 lawsuits filed by and against Trump and his companies shows that he rarely follows through with lawsuits over people’s words. He has won only one such case, and the ultimate disposition of that is in dispute.
The Republican presidential candidate has threatened political ad-makers, a rapper, documentary filmmakers, a Palm Beach civic club’s newsletter and the Better Business Bureau for lowering its rating of Trump University . He’s vowed to sue multiple news organizations including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and USA TODAY. He didn’t follow through with any of those, though he did sue comedian Bill Maher , an author over a single line in a 276-page book, and Miss Pennsylvania.
A USA TODAY Network analysis of the lawsuits involving Trump and his companies includes only six in which the Trump team has formally claimed someone libeled, slandered or defamed him, and a few other court cases where he used other legal avenues to fight what someone said about him. At least one Trump target filed a counter-claim for harassment and won.
The threats can be effective. Even the possibility of a lawsuit by a rich, powerful opponent raises the specter of years of expensive and time-consuming litigation. “Plainly, the guy uses lawsuits as a tool of intimidation and doesn’t care how much he clogs the courts with nonsense,” Maher said in an interview.
Alan Garten, the Trump Organization 's general counsel, said Trump the person and Trump the brand are intertwined, which means lawsuits, or the threat of them, are important to safeguard the name. "My job is to protect my clients and their brand from attacks," Garten said. "To say now he should stop engaging in business or protecting his rights is crazy and inconsistent with the principles of the American people."
He said it’s not surprising that few suits have actually been filed. "I'm not aware of many defamation lawsuits we've filed in the last 10 years, because we were able to achieve results without that process," he said. "We've been very effective in using cease-and-desist letters."
Some of the threats come in the heat of the moment on social media. “Watch Kasich squirm -- if he is not truthful in his negative ads I will sue him just for fun!” Trump tweeted in November about one of his primary opponents, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. Trump dropped the threat there.
Trump has raised the possibility that, as president, he would try to “open up” the nation’s libel laws to make it easier to sue. That’s unlikely to happen because standards for libel have been set over decades based on the Constitution, Supreme Court rulings and state laws, and the president has limited authority or influence in those realms, but it’s still disconcerting for some who study the media.
“We have a system that worked remarkably well to foster debate and discourse over 50 years. I think we tinker with that at our peril,” said Gene Policinski, senior vice president of the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center in Washington, DC.
In September, Trump lawyers threatened the conservative Club for Growth with a lawsuit over political television advertisements aired during Iowa's caucuses. A letter from Garten said the commercial’s assertion that Trump supports higher taxes was among messages “replete with outright lies, false, defamatory and destructive comments and downright fabrications.” It threatened a “multi-million dollar lawsuit” if the organization didn’t pull the ads.
Club for Growth attorneys responded by calling it “nonsense” and threatened countersuits for abusive litigation. “We responded with a letter, ran several more ads and never heard from them again,” said Doug Sachtleben, Club for Growth spokesman. “We are strong on the First Amendment and free speech and would argue it’s best for the voters to see those messages and do their own investigation on their own if they’d like.”
Garten acknowledges the strength of the First Amendment, but added, “That doesn’t give them the right to misrepresent the facts.”
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