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The former president’s familiarity with challenges, counterattacks and procrastination seems less effective than ever as investigations and prosecutions continue to oppose him.
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By Maggie Haberman
The unfolding legal threats facing former President Donald J. Trump is his decades-old playbook for defending himself against prosecutors, regulators and other accusers and enemies like never before, with his trademark combination of defiance, counterattacks, deception and delays facing a series of setbacks. .
In other legal maneuvers and to shape public opinion on issues related to him, Trump has noticed normal U-turn in the courts in recent months, even as he begins his crusade for another term in the White House.
“Mr. Trump is a prolific and complicated litigator who continually uses the courts to exact revenge on political opponents,” Justice Donald M. wrote this month. Middlebrooks of the District Court of EE. de his attorneys. nearly a million dollars for filing a frivolous civil lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and F. B. I. officials. “He is the mastermind of the strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be a litigator blindly following the recommendation of a lawyer. “
The fine appeared to prompt Trump to temporarily drop a similar lawsuit he filed against Letitia James, the New York attorney general, who is filing a $250 million lawsuit alleging widespread financial fraud by the former president, his eldest children and his company.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office began presenting evidence Monday to a grand jury about his role in the silent cash payment to a porn star in his 2016 presidential crusade, the latest in a series of investigations and legal proceedings that continue despite Manhattan’s efforts. . to block or undermine them.
The Justice Department is investigating its handling of classified documents and its role in efforts to oppose the final results of the 2020 election, and faces an indictment imaginable from the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, as part of its efforts to remain in effect after its election defeat.
Two lawsuits against Trump filed through E. Jean Carroll, a New York resident who accused him of raping her in the 1990s in a branch locker room, are moving forward despite his threats to sue her.
Many queries. Since leaving office, former President Donald J. Trump has been the subject of several investigations into his dealings and political activities. Here is a review of some notable cases:
Research of classified documents. The F. B. I. searched Mr. Trump’s Florida home as part of Justice Decomponentment’s investigation into his handling of classified documents. The investigation centers on documents Mr. Trump brought with him to Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence, as he left the White House.
Investigations of January 6. In a series of public hearings, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented a full account by Mr. S. Trump to overturn the 2020 election. This evidence may allow federal prosecutors, who are conducting a parallel investigation of criminals, to indict Mr. Trump.
Atlanta-area prosecutor Fani T. Willis conducted an extensive criminal investigation into Mr. Georgia’s efforts. Trump and his allies to oppose his defeat in the 2020 election in Georgia. President and his associates.
New York State Civil Case. Letitia James, New York Attorney General, indicted M. Trump, his circle of business relatives and his 3 adult children from lying to lenders and insurers, fraudulently inflating the price of their assets. The allegations, included in a wide-ranging trial — are the culmination of a year-long civil investigation.
Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, investigated whether, among others, Mr. Trump or his family business circle deliberately presented false asset values to potential lenders. As a result of the investigation, the Trump organization convicted for December 6 of tax evasion and other crimes.
“Trump sees the judicial formula as he sees everything else: corrupt, ‘fixable’ and usable as an intimidation tactic,” Alan Marcus, a representative who worked for the Trump Organization in the 1990s.
Marcus recalled that Trump called the lawyers who filed a lawsuit against him to try to convince them that “it was a waste of time and money,” and then, despite everything, tried to take the case to a trial on him perceived as amicable.
A spokesman for Trump did not respond to an emailed comment about his history of handling legal threats.
Since he remains popular with many Republican voters, Trump, according to others who spoke to him, fears facing a thief charge, anything he has been looking for since the 1970s. And he remains committed to techniques for dealing with such threats, tactics he learned from his former attorney Roy M. Cohn, who liked to attack the judicial formula while looking for paintings with privileged relationships.
In the Georgia investigation, Trump referred to Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in charge of the investigation, as other black prosecutors investigating him are “racist. “
He relentlessly denounced the Justice Department as partisan and attacked Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who recently effectively filed fraud charges against Mr. Manhattan’s company. Trump and lately is seeking fraud charges in the case of Stormy Daniels Hush Money.
How Times reporters cover politics. We depend on our news hounds to be independent observers. Therefore, while Times staff members can vote, they are not allowed to participate in campaigns or crusades on behalf of candidates or political causes. candidate or electoral cause.
On Monday, Trump filed a lawsuit against journalist Bob Woodward, alleging that Woodward had released recordings of interviews with him as an audiobook with his permission. Woodward and his editor, Simon
But while it’s unclear whether Trump will ever be charged with a crime or convicted in civil cases, this technique is less effective for him than ever to avoid investigations and potential legal risks.
“You can exhaust a personal part if you don’t have the same resources as you, or you can settle a civil case and make it go away, but criminal instances are not about money,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former federal prosecutor and former FBI prosecutor. official. ” Criminal instances are about freedom and justice, and it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to exhaust federal prosecutors and the FBI. and make them leave.
In purely political terms, Trump remains a stronghold in the Republican Party, even as a reduced figure who has eroded from its 2020 highs. Several polls still show him with a plurality or majority among Republican voters, for whom he is the only declared presidential candidate in 2024.
And the component of his technique for his own struggles for many years has been to capitalize on the problems of his critics and opposition. This has had a negative effect, as a special advocate investigates how documents with classified marks were stored in President Biden’s home and in a workplace he used after his vice presidency, a fact Trump used to check to cover up how many classified documents were kept in his club, Mar-a-Lago.
Victor A. Kovner, a prominent Democratic and First Amendment activist in New York City, attributed Kovner’s approach. Trump on legal issues to what he learned from Cohn, who died of AIDS in 1986 and whom Kovner despised for his tactics.
“Always distraction, and scorched earth and obvious counterattacks at first, and after a long time, settling as quietly as possible,” M said. Kovner on Trump’s habit in what were commonly civil lawsuits. attacks as slanderous as possible. Mainly from Roy Cohn’s playbook.
Since the 1970s, Trump has alternately denounced prosecutors or investigators or cajoled, chatted and tried to find an internal avenue for an investigation or investigation. And he established relationships with the force’s elite in New York, many of whom also held positions that may just threaten a businessman.
In the 1980s, Mr. Trump began cultivating what would be a decades-long connection with Robert M. Morgenthau, the tough Manhattan prosecutor in whose jurisdiction Mr. Manhattan’s company was located. Trump, by getting involved in the charity Mr. Morgenthau loved, the Policía. Sr Sports League. Trump announced in 1988 that he would raise money for Rudolph W. Giuliani, then considered a possible mayoral candidate while he was a U. S. attorney in the Southern District of New York (M. Giuliani was the Republican nominee the following year).
In 1979, as Trump struggled to become a bigger real estate player in Manhattan after an initial foray into a decrepit East Side hotel on the Grand Hyatt, his acquisition of another parcel of land was being investigated by the federal government in Brooklyn. Korman.
Mr. Korman, following the roadmap defined in the reports of Wayne Barrett, a muckraking journalist for The Village Voice, investigated whether Mr. Trump had agreed to point out a lawsuit against an oil company filed through a lawyer he needed to buy a giant parcel of undeveloped land for rent in Manhattan. Sr. Trump met with federal investigators, the presence of an attorney, according to Mr. Barrett.
It’s a six-month investigation with a weak witness, according to others familiar with the job, with a statute of limitations approaching, making it less likely that charges will be paid. However, the lesson Trump seemed to know is that he had the ability to emerge from difficult conditions by persuading his antagonists.
When Eric T. Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general at the time, opened an investigation in 2011 into Trump University, looking into whether Trump’s for-profit courses. . Trump first tried to flatter and construct quotes.
He hired Avi Schick, who had been the director of Schick’s nomination. But no deal was negotiated with Schneiderman and, regardless, Trump accused Schick of being part of a plan through Schneiderman Sr. Trump to give cash to his crusade in exchange for leaving the investigación. Sr. Trump complained bitterly that one of his company’s lawyers had complied with Mr. Trump’s request for documents. Schneiderman recalled Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Cohen’s former fixer. Trump, in a 2021 interview.
Mr. Trump fought the case until he settled it right after his election in 2016.
Since becoming president, Mr. Trump has been searching for his next Roy Cohn. When he was in the White House and was appointed a special suggestion to investigate his cross-conspiracy with the Russians in the 2016 election and obstruction of justice, one of the S Trumps to meet with the other people who were investigating him. He told his lawyers he wanted to sit down with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, from the beginning.
These lawyers refused to stick to the president’s impulses. But some of his recent lawyers have yielded to his impulses, at most to attack aggressively.
“I think he thinks everything can be bought or fought,” M said. Rosenberg, “and that’s just not true. “
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