Former President Donald Trump’s various legal teams are facing the predicament of potentially harming their legal defense in one case by making certain admissions in another, according to a new analysis by Reuters.
“Tenants who live in rent-regulated apartments once owned by Donald Trump’s father have just filed an amended class action complaint accusing the former president and several of his relatives of fraud and racketeering in connection with an alleged scheme to hike tenants’ rents by charging inflated prices for major appliances,” longtime Reuters legal columnist Alison Frankel wrote. “And according to the tenants’ lawyers from Parker Waichman, some of the best evidence in their case came directly from Trump defendants as they try to win the dismissal of a separate lawsuit brought by Donald Trump’s niece Mary Trump.”
Frankel noted the tenants’ claims have not yet been tested in court and Trump Organization attorneys dispute them.
“Nevertheless, the tenants’ co-opting of defense evidence from the parallel Mary Trump case is a good example of the complexities of multifront litigation, in which your best defense in one case can have unintended consequences in another,” she wrote. “The Mary Trump suit and the tenants’ class action are both rooted in business practices first described in The New York Times’ 2018 investigation of Donald Trump’s tax history.”
Allegations in both cases involve All County Building Supply and Maintenance, which was run by Donald Trump, his siblings, and cousin John Walter. Two motions were made by other members of the Trump family urging Mary Trump’s complaint to be dismissed.
“Both motions argued primarily that Mary Trump waited far too long to sue. The New York Times’ reporting on All County, the motions said, was based on information that Mary Trump first acquired 20 years ago in litigation over her share of her grandfather’s estate and then gave to Times reporters. Mary Trump could have raised allegations about All County decades before the Times series, the motions said, but she didn’t,” Frankel explained. “Tenants’ lawyers from Parker Waichman were monitoring filings in the Mary Trump case – and they did not view the deposition testimony quoted in dismissal motions as proof that Mary Trump waited too long to sue. Instead, they pounced on the old testimony as evidence that the Trumps used All County to impose fraudulent rent hikes.”
Read the full analysis.
Image: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour