Amicus: Why Donald Trump Sues Everyone

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2024

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the first in a new series, The Law According to Trump, Amicus begins an extensive exploration of Donald Trump's tumultuous relationship with the courts and legal system, focusing on Trump's use of lawyers and lawsuits to enhance his brand, wealth, and power. In the past few months, attention has rightly been on several blockbuster federal cases involving former President Trump, all the way up to and including his immunity case at the Supreme Court, but Trump’s history with the law goes back much further and is much broader than the election subversion cases. While Dahlia Lithwick takes a well-deserved break, Amicus is very lucky to have award-winning investigative journalist Andrea Bernstein in the host chair. Andrea has covered five trials against Trump or his company for NPR, is the author of American Oligarchs: the Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power, and she has also hosted three podcasts that touch on Trump and the law, including, most recently “We Don’t Talk About Leonard.” This episode delves into Trump's history of litigation with a close eye on how he has used nuisance lawsuits. Slate’s jurisprudence editor Jeremy Stahl joins Andrea to outline the many people and organizations the former President has sued since leaving office. Then, former US Attorney Jim Zirin, author of Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits, fills us in on the history of Trump’s love of litigation. Want more Amicus? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately unlock exclusive SCOTUS analysis and weekly extended episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Hi and welcome to Amicus. This is Slade's podcast about the courts and the law.
0:19.7	I'm Andrea Bernstein.
0:21.5	I'm sliding into Dahlia's chair for a few weeks. While she
0:24.4	takes a well-deserved break, I've covered five trials against Trump or his
0:28.9	company for NPR and I'm the author of American oligarchs, the Cushners, the Trumps, and the
0:34.2	marriage of money and power. I've hosted three podcasts that touch on Trump and
0:39.1	the law. And now I'm here to host a summer series we're calling the law according to Trump.
0:46.4	As we all know, Donald Trump has spent a lot of time in court in the past few years
0:50.8	defending himself against four felony indictments.
0:55.0	Beginning in 2022, his company was convicted of 17 felony fraud counts for paying his employees, unlawfully, with untaxed benefits like luxury cars and apartments.
1:07.3	He himself was found liable for defamation and sex abuse and ordered to pay writer E. Jean Carroll five million dollars.
1:16.0	He was then found liable for another instance of defamation and ordered to pay 83 million
1:21.7	dollars. Not a month later, he was found liable by a New York judge for a
1:27.2	decades long business model of fraud and ordered to pay, when you count interest, nearly half a billion dollars. and
1:35.0	then I covered the most watched trial of them all,
1:38.0	the one where the jury foreman said guilty,
1:41.0	34 times to the charge of falsifying business records in the first degree.
1:46.3	And Trump is still facing charges in Washington, D.C. and in Georgia for allegedly trying to
1:52.4	illegally alter the outcome of the 2020 election.
1:55.0	But in this series we're going to look at something else.
2:00.0	At Donald Trump's long relationship with the law, how he's used lawyers and
2:05.7	lawsuits and sometimes even judges to enhance his brand, his money, and his power.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.