March 9, 2016

Donald Trump Admits He Sues People Just to Harass Them

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Ten years ago Donald Trump sued author Timothy O’Brien for having the gall to doubt Trump’s wealth. After considerable research for his book TrumpNation, O’Brien concluded that Trump had massively overstated his assets and understated his liabilities: he was actually worth $150-250 million, not $5-6 billion. Naturally, Trump sued.

And lost. It took five years, but he was basically thrown out of court. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post asked Trump about this recently:

Trump said in an interview that he knew he couldn’t win the suit but brought it anyway to make a point. “I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about.”

I’m no lawyer, but even at this late date, wouldn’t an admission like that open up Trump to a suit for frivolous litigation? And wouldn’t it also hurt him in future lawsuits? Or is this more complicated than I think?

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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