(CNN)On Tuesday, the Justice Department sued former national security adviser John Bolton in an attempt to prevent him from publishing a memoir about his time Donald Trump’s White House. Trump told reporters that Bolton would face “criminal problems” if he went forward with the book.
That same day, The Daily Beast reported that Trump is weighing his legal options to stop his niece, Mary Trump, from publishing her own book — “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” — that paints the President in an unfavorable light.
Last week, the Trump campaign sent a cease and desist letter to CNN — asking for a national poll that showed Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by 14 points be retracted. (He hasn’t actually sued CNN over the poll.)
Notice a pattern? Faced with declining political fortunes and with former advisers — and even family — turning against him, Trump lashes out legally. What will come of these various threats? If past is prologue, not much.
Because this oh-yeah-well-I’ll-sue-you! strategy isn’t just a pattern of late. It’s basically how Trump has dealt with annoying or troubling facts his entire life.
“For nearly half a century, Trump … has used lawsuits as cudgels and prods and publicity stunts. He and his wingmen have used them, or threats of them, to harass, to deflect and delay, to punish opponents and protect his brand, his money, his image, himself. Even in the face of losses, he has used them to find a way to wins.
“The difference now is that Trump’s legal arsenal includes not just an array of personal attorneys but the vast resources of the Department of Justice—which at times he has hoped would serve the same role as his most bare-knuckled advocates.”
According to an exhaustive study by USA Today. Trump and his business have been involved in more than 4,000(!) lawsuits over the past three decades — a stunning number that serves as a testament to how the President, even before he was president, used the legal system to fight back when times were hard for him.
“Does anyone know more about litigation than Trump?” Trump said of himself on the campaign trail in 2016. “I’m like a Ph.D. in litigation.”
“Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” Trump said in October 2016. “Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”
He has filed a total of zero lawsuits against the women.
Or his lawsuit attempting to block the release of his tax returns to a New York grand jury, which was rejected by a federal judge last fall. Or his lawsuit to block House Democrats from gaining access to his financial records. Both cases have now been argued in front of the Supreme Court, with rulings expected sometime in the next few weeks.
Or going all the way back to the early 1970s when in response to the Department of Justice suing Trump and his father for racial discrimination in rental practices in buildings they owned in New York City, the Trump family hired Roy Cohn and counter-sued — tying up the process for the better part of a decade.
“Trump’s entire career has effectively been one long legal entanglement. He filed his first major lawsuit more than 40 years ago, and it was, in fact, a countersuit.”
That first lawsuit taught Trump that winning, legally speaking, didn’t have to be the end goal. Lawsuits, whether or not Trump’s side won, could be used to muddy the waters in the media and to drag out expensive processes to the point where the other side either gave up or ran out of money. And even the threat of a lawsuit against an individual without the financial means that Trump enjoyed could spook someone into dropping their legal challenge altogether.
Trump often uses lawsuits more for their public relations impact than with any hope of winning legally. He wants to distract from bad news — and suing everyone under the sun is the easiest way, in his mind, to do so.
Which brings us back to the present moment. Trump is at a low ebb in terms of his standing in state and national polls. His handling of the unrest triggered by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month has alarmed even some of his staunchest allies. His attempts to portray coronavirus as a beaten disease are belied by the increase in cases in 18 states. He’s headed for a raft of negative press attention with the publication of books by Bolton and his niece.
When backed into a corner like this, Trump sues — or at least threatens to sue. It’s his security blanket, the way he makes himself feel as though he is fighting back.
Will it work this time? It seems unlikely Trump will win (or even bring) all of the lawsuits he is threatening, has threatened and will threaten. But winning isn’t really the goal. Distraction and time-buying is.
And in that regard, Trump may get what he wants. Again.
