By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Outgoing United States President Donald Trump has sued or been sued to court more than 4,000 times, not even counting his latest legal gambits claiming vote fraud without evidence, that will seal his fate as a one-term president, a verdict handed him by Americans.
Many of the lawsuits, filed before and after he became president, are still in court. Once he leaves office and loses immunity, he faces the possibility of jail term besides financial ruin.
Trump is still fuming over his election loss, is erecting roadblocks to a smooth transition, filing lawsuits against the election result bound to fail, and trying to hobble governance before he leaves office.
But investors are not fazed by his legal manoeuvres and have come to terms with the fact that Joe Biden has an unassailable Electoral Vote lead and will be inaugurated president on January 20, 2021.
“For most investors, the perspective is that the election has been settled,” Tobias Levkovich, Citigroup’s chief US equity strategist, told CNN Business. “Providing evidence of shenanigans and irregularities is required in a court of law. And I haven’t seen any.”
The probability Trump is able to overturn the result is “fairly remote at this point,” Levkovich add.
“We see the likelihood that recounts and legal challenges could overturn this outcome as remote and favor looking through any resulting market volatility,” BlackRock strategists wrote in a note to clients Monday, per reporting by CNN.
At Raymond James, analysts Ed Mills and Chris Meekins said while Trump may continue his legal challenges, “it is extremely unlikely any of these actions will change the outcome.”
“This is not a repeat of 2000, where the election hinged on several hundred votes in one state,” the Raymond James analysts wrote Monday in a client note titled “Georgia on our minds.”
“While it took a few days for the election to be called, we do not view this as a contested election,” the analysts said.
Investors also don’t seem very impressed with the Trump team’s early legal efforts, CNN adds.
“Anyone who watched the Trump campaign’s press conference on Saturday in Philadelphia likely shares our skepticism regarding their prospects,” Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research at Compass Point Research and Trading, wrote to clients Monday.
Six of the toughest personal legal cases listed by CNN which may put Trump in trough after his White House stint are as follows:
1) Manhattan district attorney’s office looking into financial inner workings of the Trump Organisation
This case, which is being overseen by Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr., grew out of questions regarding several hush money payments made to women in the run-up to the 2016 election by then-Trump fixer Michael Cohen.
The women alleged they had engaged in extramarital affairs with Trump. (Cohen told Congress, under oath, in 2019 that there was “no doubt” in his mind that Trump knew about the hush money payments.) The investigation is broader than just the hush money, however.
As CNN’s Kara Scannell and Erica Orden wrote last month:
“Prosecutors have suggested in court filings that the investigation could examine whether the President and his company engaged in bank fraud, insurance fraud, criminal tax fraud and falsification of business records.”
Trump has repeatedly sought to block the DA’s subpoena of eight years of his tax returns and financial records as part of the investigation.
2) New York state attorney general examining how Trump valued his assets
In the wake of Cohen’s testimony alleging that Trump, along with his family members, had repeatedly “inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” New York AG Letitia James announced that she would investigate the claims to see if they elevate to the level of fraud.
Just last month, Eric Trump was questioned under oath about whether he or the Trump organisation sought to artificially inflate and deflate their assets.
3) Attorneys general of Maryland and Washington, DC, suing over the emoluments clause
This suit was originally brought way back in 2017, alleging that Trump was violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution by profiting from foreign governments’ spending in his Trump hotel in downtown Washington.
The case appeared dead until May, when the 4th Circuit overturned the ruling of a three-judge panel that said the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the case.
Trump has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. (There is also a second emoluments case that is still pending – this one brought by a group of restaurants and a hotel operator.)
4) E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit
Days before the 2020 election, a federal judge rejected an attempt by Trump, represented by Department of Justice lawyers, to effectively dismiss a case brought by Carroll alleging that Trump had raped her in the 1990s.
He denied her allegation, saying, “She’s not my type.” The case is now proceeding through the federal court system.
Carroll says she still has the dress she wore the day Trump raped her, and has asked the court to compel him to provide a blood sample for a DNA test that will prove his fingerprints on the dress.
5) Summer Zervos’ defamation lawsuit
Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice”, sued Trump back in 2017, arguing that in his denial of her allegation that he had sexually assaulted her in 2007, he had defamed her and subjected her to harassment.
Trump lost a bid to dismiss the case in late 2019, but the proceedings – including a possible subpoena for Trump to provide a deposition – have been put on hold until he leaves office.
6) Mary Trump’s lawsuit
The niece of Trump – and the author of the scathing bestseller Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man – sued him in September, alleging that he, his sister and his late brother had committed fraud to keep her from getting her fair share of the estate of Trump’s father, Fred Sr.
Aside from those half-dozen suits is the question of whether Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice for his attempts to impede and inhibit the investigation into the 2016 election and Russia’s role in it by special counsel Robert Mueller.
In a back-and-forth during congressional testimony in July 2019, Mueller, a former FBI director, suggested that he believed Trump could be charged once he left office.
It’s impossible to know whether any of these pending lawsuits will ever emerge as a genuine threat to Trump.
Especially when you consider that Trump has, for decades, shown a willingness to exercise absolutely every legal avenue to protect himself, muddy the waters and slow the proceedings to a crawl.
What is clear, however, is that Trump will have fewer airtight legal protections as a former president than he did as a sitting president. Far fewer, CNN insists.
2020 not 2000
Democrat Al Gore filed a lawsuit in 2000 over the count in Florida, which led to a recount in selected Florida counties.
The recount was stopped later by the Supreme Court, which ruled 7-2 that it was unconstitutional and that no constitutionally valid recount could be completed by the December 12 deadline.
The ruling effectively gave Republican Bush a 537 vote victory in Florida as well as Florida’s 25 electoral votes and the presidency.
Gore won the popular vote by about 500,000 votes but received 266 electoral votes to Bush’s 271 (one District of Columbia elector abstained).
Gore eventually conceded the election on December 13, 2000 but said he strongly disagreed with the decision of the Supreme Court.
2020 reality
“We see the likelihood that recounts and legal challenges could overturn this outcome as remote and favor looking through any resulting market volatility,” BlackRock strategists wrote in a note to clients Monday, per reporting by CNN.
At Raymond James, analysts Ed Mills and Chris Meekins said while Trump may continue his legal challenges, “it is extremely unlikely any of these actions will change the outcome.”
“This is not a repeat of 2000, where the election hinged on several hundred votes in one state,” the Raymond James analysts wrote Monday in a client note titled “Georgia on our minds.”
“While it took a few days for the election to be called, we do not view this as a contested election,” the analysts said.
Investors also don’t seem very impressed with the Trump team’s early legal efforts, CNN adds.
“Anyone who watched the Trump campaign’s press conference on Saturday in Philadelphia likely shares our skepticism regarding their prospects,” Isaac Boltansky, director of policy research at Compass Point Research and Trading, wrote to clients Monday.