Trump Threatens To Sue ProPublica For Reporting On Payouts To Witnesses In His Various Cases

ProPublica has quite a scoop of a story, highlighting how various witnesses and potential witnesses in the long list of lawsuits Donald Trump is facing, suddenly, coincidentally, seem to be getting large payouts from Trump, his companies, and his campaign.

The benefits have flowed from Trump's businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign's top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee.

These pay increases and other benefits often came at delicate moments in the legal proceedings against Trump. One aide who was given a plum position on the board of Trump's social media company, for example, got the seat after he was subpoenaed but before he testified.

ProPublica isn't one to publish stuff without having the receipts, and the reporting here seems pretty solid. They're not directly accusing Trump of witness interference or bribery, but they are noting (accurately) that it all certainly looks pretty damn sketchy.

But, what's more interesting, and relevant to Techdirt's usual beat, is this:

Trump's attorney, David Warrington, sent ProPublica a cease-and-desist letter demanding this article not be published. The letter warned that if the outlet and its reporters continue their reckless campaign of defamation, President Trump will evaluate all legal remedies."

So, first of all, Warrington presents himself on his own bio as the lawyer to the Liberty Movement," which is pretty fucking rich for someone threatening to sue a news org for doing journalism his client doesn't like:

No offense, but if you're threatening SLAPP suits to silence people doing inconvenient reporting, you're not a part of any liberty movement".

Of course, Trump has filed a bunch of defamation lawsuits over critical reporting in the past few years, and they've not gone well to date. If he followed through on this threat, it seems quite unlikely to succeed in court again, but that's never been the point.

Trump appears to be a classic SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) filer. He sues news orgs not because he has a legitimate legal claim, but because he wants to waste time and money for anyone reporting critically on him. This is done to (1) punish those who have done that kind of reporting and (2) to scare off others from doing more such reporting.

The very first anti-SLAPP laws came about in response to property developers filing bogus SLAPP suits against people protesting development plans. So it's perhaps not surprising that Trump, who comes from the property development world, has no problem filing SLAPP suit after SLAPP suit.

But, this is yet another reason why we need a federal anti-SLAPP law and strong anti-SLAPP laws in every state. These laws need to quickly toss such cases out of court and require the plaintiff to pay the legal fees of the defendant. Donald Trump continues to be exhibit A for why such laws are needed.