Trump Complains that He Filed So Many Voluminous Frivolous Lawsuits
As noted, DOJ used a reply to Trump’s bid for a 2026 trial to debunk some, though not all, of his misrepresentations in it.
But they also used it to describe some of what was included in around 11.8 million pages of discovery so far. And it turns out that one reason why there’s so much, in terms of page count, is because Trump filed so many frivolous lawsuits after the 2020 election.
Here’s what the filing says was included in discovery so far:
- Files from Trump or entities associated with him (3 million in first batch and 120,000 in the second)
- Files from NARA that Trump’s attorneys have already reviewed
- Trump’s Tweets and Truth Social posts
- Court filings from his frivolous lawsuits
- The January 6 Committee Report and backup (~1 million)
- All emails from Secret Service custodians from requested time period (3.1 million)
That leaves roughly 4 million pages of other stuff, much of which likely comes from his alleged co-conspirators and other associates.
So it’s probably not just his own frivolous lawsuits, but also Sidney Powell’s frivolous lawsuits, and Rudy’s voluminous lies.
Voluminous complaints in frivolous lawsuits, particularly those filed by The Kraken Squad, cured me of my desire to read complaints. I’d much rather read memorandum opinions and orders. There’s meat on those bones.
‘Fire a gun at me and I’ll drop a nuclear bomb’ recalled Barbara Res, an engineer who worked for Trump, describing Trump.
DJT and his businesses has been involved in more than 4,000 legal cases before he was elected president. Seems like abuse to me even for being a developer in NYC. His abuse of the legal system with his coconspirators is now being paid back in spade. Really it couldn’t happen to a more deserving man. Sadly America pays the price.
Scene: a legal office somewhere, with three junior associates peering at their computer screens, taking notes on legal pads and shaking their heads . . .
Jr Associate #1 (slapping her forehead): What a load of crap!
Jr Associate #2 (in all seriousness): Be more specific. What, precisely, in this perfect pile of perfect manure, are you referring to?
Jr Associate #1: These legal filings. If I’d turned something like this in to my law school prof, I’d not just have flunked that course but would have been laughed out of school.
Jr Associate #3 (continuing to click through files on his screen without looking up): True, but you’re assuming that they actually wanted to win these cases.
Jr Associate #2: What? Of course they actually wanted to win these cases.
Jr Associate #3 (looking up from his screen): It would have been nice, but that’s not why they filed all this. They weren’t seeking justice – they were feeding The Base.
Jr Associate #1: What do you mean?
Jr Associate #2: What he means — and I think he’s right — is that the purpose of this perfect pile of perfect manure was to nourish every possible grievance of Trump’s supporters, so that they would (a) send him money, (b) get riled up about Their Man being persecuted, (c) send him money, and most importantly (d) send him money.
Jr Associate #1: That makes so much sense, given what I’ve been reading. But I think you left one thing out.
Jr Associate #3: What’s that?
Jr. Associate #1: You left out (e) when the whole house of cards predictably came apart, and the indictments came down just as predictably, all this material — each and every frivolous suit, each and every pusillanimous tweet (excuse me: “Truth”), each and every silly argument put down on paper or pixels — all this material turned over in discovery would provide the most wonderful excuse to ask that the inevitable trial should be pushed back two and a half years.
Jr Associate #3: Eleventy-dimensional legal chess? Trump, thinking ahead? That, my friend, presumes facts not in evidence. On the spectrum between Very Stable Evil Genius and Toddlerish Tempermental Silly Crook, I’d place our client more on the Toddlerish Termpermental Silly Crook end of things.
In school I was taught that reasoned discussion — making arguments and supporting them, to answer open questions relating to a particular subject matter, for example – was the right way to address issues. Anything that I said or proposed, would be subjected to the scrutiny of the group and called out for factual inaccuracies, biases, faulty reasoning, etc. A shoddy argument like Trump’s (here) would not last long. It’s laughable but also distressing to see Trump’s attorneys raise such baseless arguments. Certainly they have some colorable arguments to raise, but throwing in junk like this only poisons the entire process, making it difficult for the government to ever even consider accommodating a Trump request when doing so might otherwise be useful overall. It’s not like there is some golden mean that can be achieved between the parties’ positions. Trump will always go nuclear.
That approach to argument assumes that acting in bad faith leads to negative consequences. Trump has spent a lifetime learning that there are no negative consequences if you’re rich and famous.
Some years back I read an article about Trump’s casino-building days in Atlantic City. He ordered ten grand pianos from a local NJ music store and paid a 50% deposit. Shortly after the pianos were delivered the dealer received a letter from Trump’s attorneys. They told him they were keeping the pianos, not paying the balance and he would have to sue if he wanted his money. He wrote them off. I often wonder how many other small businesses did the same thing. He was probably liable for many thousands more lawsuits than the ones that actually got filed.
I grew up outside of Atlantic City. Lots of people have these stories. Getting 50% of what he owed you is honestly pretty good. I’ve heard of contractors who did work and got nothing or had to fight years. Some people did work with him even knowing his reputation assuming the exposure would outweigh the headache: it never was.
Just wrote this in another thread, but seems relevant here. DT has already succeeded in trying these cases in the court of public opinion. Unfortunately for him, based on the publicly available evidence, he’s guilty as shit. I suspect he won’t fare better in court with at least some of these cases.
Carrying a couple sheets of copy paper in one hand, grizzled SR. ASSOCIATE enters LEGAL OFFICE, lifts and swigs from a double shot of espresso with his other hand.
Sr. Associate #1: Trump’s grift is based on a lifetime of frivolous SLAPP suits, like Trump v. O’Brien. (Sr. Associate #1 tosses the sheets of copy paper onto the table before the Jr. Associates who scrabble at the paper to read it.) The orange twatwaffle treats every lawsuit the same way, with enough obfuscation by paper and motions to hurt the opponent in wallet until they cave.
CARD:
Sr. Associate #1: After a lifetime of SLAPPs, it’s about time Trump got slapped back. Get him back, Jack. (Raises go-cup in a salute then takes another swig of espresso.)
One would think Roy Cohn would have taught him better. Maybe not. Apparently not. Was Cohn that much of a PoS?
He was McCarthy’s Chief Counsel
And, yes, Cohn was exactly that much of a piece of shit.
There isn’t enough toilet paper in the world to wipe up after Cohn.
A Roomba wetvac would take a century, but since Defendant-1 cites Roy Cohn as his muse it would behoove us to wade into the fetid vault of Cohn’s mindset. I’d recommend NBC protection.
it would beHoover us?
Tsk, tsk, tsk…
Hoover?..Roy?..Fred?
Weren’t they friends.
20th and 21st centuries corruption…makes the Roman’s 2nd and 3rd centuries corruptions seem innocent.
it’s where dreams go to Dyson.
We have a Dyson Animal. Because we have a rather large animal.
We never cleaned out that whole line. There is a picture of J.Edgar Hoover leaned over to Richard M. Nixon who is handing a piece of paper to McCarthy during those hearings.
I am going to see if I can find those pictures. My guess Cohn in in there.
Absofuckinglutely. A predator among predators, who found his peers among the senior ranks of the FBI and the Archdiocese of NYC.
I often wonder if Roy Cohn could speak from wherever (in hell) he is, he would have joined the chorus warning about Trump, based on his own experience of being ditched in his dying days.
On the other hand, it’s arguably what he would have counseled Trump to do–to anyone else.
As a junior attorney prosecuting the treason case against Julius and Ethyl Rosenberg, Roy Cohn was responsible for FABRICATING EVIDENCE against Ethyl Rosenberg and suborning the perjury of David Greenglass, Ethyl Rosenberg’s brother, both to the Grand Jury and on the witness stand at trial (and yes, the stories were inconsistent and used to impeach Greenglass at trial, but to no avail).
Greenglass agreed to the perjury to save his own WIFE who was the one who did the act (typing up notes) that he falsely stated Ethyl did. The senior prosecutors above Cohn agreed to the scheme as the only way to compel Julius to name names because they felt there was no way Julius would allow his innocent wife be electrocuted and his children be orphaned. Prosecutors were wrong, and they even held private discussions, allegedly WITH THE TRIAL JUDGE WHO SENTENCED THE COUPLE TO DEATH, about whether they should allow Ethyl Rosenberg to be executed on the basis of her brother’s false testimony, which was known to be false by each of them before her execution.
Source: 1970s “60 Minutes” interview of David Greenglass (on YouTube) where Greenglass admits his perjury and says he ‘does not regret his decision to this day’ even though it got his sister killed. ‘It prevented my wife from being killed, the mother of my children’ is how he justified his admitted perjury to interviewer Mike Wallace.
and much more in depth coverage of the fabrication being Roy Cohn’s invention: book – Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy (2021) by Anne Sebba
pages 129, 137, 258;
also
Cohn urging eletrocution anyway: pages 171, 204;
Cohn prepping witnesses for false testimony: pages 137 -141
Cohn was not alone in his evil, and scholars argue there was still other evidence that could have been used to implicate Ethyl’s friendliness with Julius’s spy network or that suggests she had advanced knowledge of Julius’ activities, but I’ve not had a chance to dig into this extrajudicial evidence against Ethyl that scholars say exists. Regardless, Cohn plotted to have Ethyl Rosenberg killed for the crimes of her husband and urged the “U.S. Justice System” to stick to its guns when the ruse failed to make Julius squeal. Her innocence also was discussed when justice system officials were deciding who to execute first!
And what’s even worse, in my mind, was the actual admitted conduct of the person that Cohn selected to perjure himself (who’d serve about a decade for this trade), was the guy on the ground in Los Alamos serving in the Army and actually-hands-on-STEALING the secrets — Ethyl’s brother, David Greenglass.
That’s Donald Trump’s man, Roy Cohn! The lawyer he wanted all his later lawyers to emulate! Yeah! THAT guy!
Peterr,
You only use your superpowers for good, right?
I could even hear Jr Associate #2’s voice as I read this.
Heh.
Facts have a way of making the murky clear.
11,800,000 pages is a big number. That is the simply message: a rallying cry for the Trumpers that demonstrates the unfairness of the DOJ’s approach. But just like the ‘largest crowd ever on the mall at an inauguration’, hyperbole is a feature, not a bug.
It’s a go-to moveof Trump’s to base his cries of unfairness on conditions he, himself, created. Remember when he accused the judge (of Hispanic heritage) in the Trump U case of discrimination based on Trump’s own racist remarks about Mexicans?
It’s all theme and variation with Trump.
I found it very interesting that SC Smith already anticipated the claims and filed the reply within hours, pointing out (as noted in various places above) that the defense team already has many of these docs, and FWIW, some of the docs aren’t critical to the narrow list of charges Smith filed on DC. It’s also worth noting items such as the ‘median time’ included trial all the way through sentencing which is an apples-to-oranges comparison. It’s why statistics are used in cases like this.
“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” – Benjamin Disraeli
“First get the facts, then distort them at your leisure” – Mark Twain
It’s also kind of stupid to demand a delay to 2026 as the defense did since it just screams ‘working the refs’ to me. It also seems to assume that Judge Chutkan wouldn’t see through the attempt in an unsurprising failure to research by the defense.
I think Judge Chutkan will not grant the delay to 2026, perhaps to March at the most (though IANAL). Perhaps the idea here is to pile up so much BS that Defendant-1 gets bailed out by the DC Circuit (unlikely) or by SCOTUS (more likely). However, since SC Smith’s briefs are remarkably clear and on point, only Alito, ACB, Kavanaugh and Thomas are likely to support Trump in general on this point (Gorsuch and Roberts love procedural compliance) and only Thomas supported Trump on the executive privilege claim before.
All Hail Voluminous Frivolous the First and Only, Emperor of Lies and acknowledged Master of His Shiitake-Headed Domain!!!
Great headline. There is something heartwarming and beautiful about Trump having to pay his lawyers to review millions of pages of his utter bullshit.
I don’t see how Trump would care one iota. He isn’t paying the lawyers his supporters are. He will get his delay, probably until after the election. That is all he cares about.
But any money his supporters give him that is used to pay for lawyers is less money that he can skim off for his own purposes.
I used to have sympathy for the people who send him money, but at this point there is no excuse.
Reviewing discovery documents can be a hard slog. You have to look at everything, because if you start skipping pages, you might miss something fantastic. But the truth is that there is almost always redundancy and irrelevant garbage in the huge pile of documents you receive. Once you know you’re looking at something you’ve seen several other places, you don’t have to read every word of it.
Judge Chutkan knows this, and she’s not going to be duped by this kind of hyperbole. These kinds of arguments are really made for TV lawyers and Trump’s fundraising machine.
As someone who has to review and research sometimes “voluminous” amounts of non-legalese but equally awkward word dumps, I would, well, not kill, but possibly consider maiming for the level of data accessibility provided by the SC. Load-ready data able to be automatically de-duplicated and processed into a system enabling sorting and tagging…a dream. But also standard practice in that arena, as the SC notes in their filing. I agree the judge is going to be unamused, particularly when the defendant is spending their time currently taking to social media to joke about fleeing to Russia.
“You have to look at everything, because if you start skipping pages, you might miss something fantastic. But the truth is that there is almost always redundancy and irrelevant garbage in the huge pile of documents you receive. Once you know you’re looking at something you’ve seen several other places, you don’t have to read every word of it.”
DOJ tells in its 6-page reply how to deal with discovery in the digital age:
DOJ even spends several lines of the 6 pages to provide Trump’s lawyers with references to how to deal with e-discovery, published in 2012 and 2015 respectively.
One other factor to consider is that the minions are getting restless, such as Rudy and Jenna complaining about the lack of support from Defendant-1 and his campaign. I don’t know when the witness lists get shared but I wouldn’t be surprised if SC Smith doesn’t have some of the minions in his pocket to spring as surprise witnesses.
Total speculation: I also read rumors that Melania’s pretty steamed about Barron being referenced in passing by Eric and Defendant-1 as an example of overreach (no evidence provided, of course that Barron’s stuff was searched or that he was targeted). It might make her mad enough to mention a few things because one constant about Melania has been her firm commitment to keep Barron out of political discourse.
Don’t Arraign on His Parade! – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=596N4aPnjrs&t=236s)
so…quick clarification, please.
eastman, hall, still & shafer surrendered yesterday posting bond. does that mean they’ve been booked, mug shot, fingerprinted, swabbed for DNA etc, or not yet?
rayne: “twatwaffle”? oh, my stars and garters…
LOL I think both bmaz and I have used that particular term of art though I’ve dedicated my usage to that particularly deserving monster.
Far as I know, only Scott Hall and John Eastman have been “processed”. Just this morning. Everyone else has until Friday.
And that’s why god invented AI… to process all that discovery.
I’m sure Trump’s team has access to a discovery AI. If they don’t then they needs to find one quick. :)
Is that the AI that can get a bit hyperbolic, or the AI that knows better than you and everyone what the right answer is? Perhaps the AI that even the creators of the beast warn us to be careful about.
“The lawyer for a man suing an airline in a routine personal injury suit used ChatGPT to prepare a filing, but the artificial intelligence bot delivered fake cases that the attorney then presented to the court, prompting a judge to weigh sanctions as the legal community grapples with one of the first cases of AI ‘hallucinations’ making it to court.”
[Welcome back to emptywheel. FOURTH AND FINAL REQUEST: Please choose and use a unique username with a minimum of 8 letters. We are moving to a new minimum standard to support community security. Your future comments will remain in moderation until you change your username. /~Rayne]
Speaking of candidate twatwaffles, John Eastman filed his 45-page Notice of Removal today in the Northern District of Georgia. The work quality seems consistent with what one would expect from a lawyer about to lose his California bar license.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23922289/clark-removal.pdf
Speaking of twatwaffles, the Notice of Removal is for Jeffrey Clark, not John Eastman. The quality of the Notice remains poor. It’s a combined civil and criminal notice, which also seeks to remove civil claims against Willis’s special grand jury.
Clark is trying to bootstrap the automatic stay of state court proceedings – associated only with the removal of a civil action – to cover the criminal action, which is explicitly not subject to an automatic stay.
Under 28 USC 1455(b)(3), state court proceedings may continue – except no judgment of conviction can be entered – until the district court decides whether to remand or accept the case.
Clark’s “Notice” appears to argue that the process adopted by the DA in relation to the special purpose grand jury and the ordinary grand jury somehow thereby created a hybrid civil-criminal process, which in turn entitles him to seek the relief of removal to the federal court by means of both civil and criminal provisions.
“The Fulton County Action took advantage of civil proceedings sought to augment the powers of an ordinary grand jury in Georgia with the powers of a special purpose grand jury” p3
Obviously this is bizarre, but do you have any idea of what if anything lies behind this ‘contention’?
The rest of the 45 pages reads as if it was drafted in green ink; it reminds me of the sort of screeds written by SovereignCitizens/FreemenOfTheLand types.
But is there any kernel of fact about Willis having engaged in some misuse of process, whether or not Clark’s contentions about his remedies are off the wall?
This Lawfare article discusses all matters special purpose grand juries in Georgia
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/everything-you-ever-wanted-know-about-georgia-special-purpose-grand-juries-were-afraid-ask
And includes a section on the argument of the ‘civil’ nature because they don’t return indictments, merely make reports which might recommend indictments.
There is some authority which supports this and its an argument repeatedly used by Trump -worlders however
‘ Thus far, judges in Georgia and elsewhere have overwhelmingly rejected the view that the special purpose grand jury’s investigation is civil rather than criminal. Here’s a running list of judges who have weighed in and explicitly rejected the idea: Judge Leigh Martin May of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia; Judge Gregory Lammons of the Eighth District Court of Colorado; and Judge Robert McBurney, the special purpose grand jury’s supervising judge on the Fulton County Superior Court.’
Which leads me to wonder how much time Judge Steve C Jones of the US Court for the Northern District of Georgia will give to Clark’s contentions?
The claim is that the use of the SPGJ here is unconstitutional and taints the indictment, requiring that the civil dispute about it be joined with and control removal of the criminal indictment issued by the regular grand jury. Seems as tenuous as Trump or Eastman’s grasp on reality.
TY
Ladies and germs, The Monkees:
Am probably the only human you know that saw The Monkeys live.
…and you’re still recovering from it?
. . . and so are they!
I wrote some comedy for Nesmith in the 80s. He wrote a few great country songs!
There’s some kind of connection between Micky Dolenz and my NorCal hometown, but it’s kind of vague.
The one really good musician in the Monkees.
A friend of mine told me that the “Last train to Clarkesville” referred to the train station in Clarkesville, Tennessee, nearest to Fort Campbell in Kentucky, where the 101st Airborne, the “Screaming Eagles”, were stationed during the Viet Nam War.
When they got a time off, they had to be sure to catch the last train to make it to the base before lights out.
The 101st is still based at Fort Campbell. My son’s a 2LT with them…and lives in Clarkesville.
But the song is only coincidentally about the town. One of the Monkees lived near a town called Clarksdale and a train used to run there. When they were writing the song, “Clarkesville” sounded a little better, so they used that instead.
Aw, damn. I thought all these years it was Clarksville, TN, a place I knew and could picture, which made it sweet. Still like the song though.
You mean Clark?
See it.
To the tune of Dr. Wu – Becker and Fagen
https://youtu.be/XHi3UdGOPz0
Tell Me True
Donny lied
He will never testify
He’ll be on the other side
Of iron bars soon
Mark walked in
And he helped to craft the spin
And tried to flip the vote disaster
To keep power
All along
They would claim the count was wrong
But every case they tried
Was never true
Are you with me, tell me true?
Are you really going to help me?
Fight the man from Syracuse
Are you crazy like a fox?
Have you turned in all the docs?
Are you in it just for you?
Are you with me, Meadows?
Don’t seem right
I’ve been trying to win this fight
I’ve been waiting for the case
You said you’d make for me
DOJ
Found the stolen documents, anyway
Kept searching for the stuff
You said you’d pack for me
Donnie lies
You can see it in his eyes
But imagine his surprise
If you speak truth
Are you with me, tell me true?
Are you really going to help me?
Fight the man from Syracuse
We are sleazeballs, we can’t hide
We’ll do just anything to slide
Has Jack finally got to you?
Can you hear me, Meadows?
Don’t you fear me, Meadows?
Can’t you clear me, Meadows?
Should you fear me, Meadows?
Can you hear me, Meadows?
Don’t you fear me, Meadows?
Can’t you clear me, Meadows?
Should you fear me, Meadows?
chapeau!
(“Is there gas in the car? Yes, there’s gas in the car.”)
This whole site has gone to Donald Fagan’s dog! Anyone who ever nursed a helpless crush will remember that handsome fellow–the dog, I mean.
Seriously, it’s turning into all Steely Dan here, all the time. Not complaining.
Judge Luttig is being interviewed by Nicole Wallace on MSNBC right now, and he is saying that the cases against Trump are not political, he says that “it is almost treason against the United States”.
He also says “Today, there is no Republican Party”. He is mystified that so many Republicans have not spoken out against what Trump and his followers are doing. American Democracy requires two healthy, functioning political parties and we only have one, now.”
He cites Cheney and Kinzinger as being among the only Republican heroes of the Constitution.
Trump is a grave danger to America.
Regarding the 14th A.,sec 3, “it is unmistakably applicable to the former President regarding his actions on Jan 6. The question for the Supreme Court is whether the clause is self executing and who is eligible to challenge it” He believes several Secretaries of States will refuse to place Trump on the ballot and that someone else in those states with standing will challenge it, and it will then go to the Supreme Court.
He considers himself a Republican in name only because of where the party is now, and where it appears to be headed.
Luttig is always worth listening to.
Luttig has always been a conservative jackass.
bmaz, I hope you are feeling ok. CNN just showed pictures of cactuses in Phoenix keeled over due to the heat. (this is not in response to your comments about Luttig, btw).
We are fine, and thank you for asking! Have a century plant not doing well, but most of our cacti doing well.
The loyal readers here are, of course, most concerned about a large, prickly, saguaro cactus.
Which is not to say he isn’t worth listening to. Agreeing with? No. Listening to? Sure.
Note, please, that this makes him almost a unicorn within the very large herd of conservative jackasses.
From MSNBC:
Trump Employee #4 got a new attorney, no longer Woodward. With the new representation he retracted his previous testimony and gave testimony regarding the attempt to destroy the surveillance videos by Trump, Nauta and DeOlivera.
This was the genesis for the superseding indictments in the document case.
Is Employee #4 the IT guy?
Yes