Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses Trump's record of scandal.
Former President Donald Trump was 0-3 in three high-profile legal battles this week, with new rulings that boosted significant cases his opponents have brought against him.
Perhaps the most significant of all the courtroom defeats suffered recently by Trump was a judge’s refusal Friday to dismiss several civil lawsuits filed against him for his alleged role in the January 6 US Capitol attack.
In the 112-page opinion, US District Judge Amit Mehta said that Trump could face trial for his conduct around last year’s insurrection.
The ruling was a kicker to a week when attorneys general in Washington, DC, and New York secured victories in their efforts to gather evidence as to whether his businesses broke the law. While Trump continues to wield significant political loyalty and could well be the Republicans’ 2024 presidential nominee, the legal turmoil surrounding him shows no signs of slowing.
Trump’s case for his 2020 election rested on the image created around his supposed business savvy. Now his company is a major source of the legal problems facing the former President.
The week started with a DC Superior Court judge reinstating the Trump Organization as a defendant in DC Attorney General Karl Racine’s lawsuit alleging that funds for the 2017 inauguration were misused. After reversing on Monday a prior decision that had dismissed the company from the case, Judge Yvonne Williams also said on Thursday that Racine’s office could question the company’s ex-Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg in a limited deposition.
Racine alleges that inaugural funds were used to pay off a debt incurred by a hotel room block reserved for Trump Organization employees. He is seeking to recover the nearly $1.1 million that he claims was improperly spent during the inauguration, in violation of DC non-profit law.
As Williams was setting a September trial date in Racine’s case, a judge more than 200 miles away was hearing Trump’s arguments for why he should quash subpoenas in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices, arguments the judge would ultimately reject.
