‘Maelstrom of legal trouble’: Trump dealt ‘setback after setback’ in one ‘very bad day’

Donald Trump suffered a series of courtroom defeats in one "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day" that will expose him to a new level of legal liability on a variety of fronts, and an investigative reporter compared his predicament to Bill Cosby's downfall.

The former president was dealt losses in courts across the country that could result in the exposure of his tax records, the dismantling of his family business, a civil trial for rape, and bearing the full weight of the Department of Justice, reported The Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery.

"It was setback after setback for the former president, who would have struggled to keep up with all the bad news hour by hour—just as journalists struggled to keep track of all the updates and court appearances on Tuesday," Pagliery wrote.

Tuesday morning, New York justice Arthur F. Engoron set an October 2023 court date for state attorney general Letitia James' $250 million fraud lawsuit against the Trump Organization, and that afternoon a panel of federal appeals judges in Atlanta indicated they'll roll back the protections Florida district court judge Aileen Cannon set up for Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case.

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"These appellate judges also seemed to lose their patience with the outlandish tactics now being employed regularly by Trump’s cadre of lawyers, who insert Fox News and Newsmax political rants into legal briefs and court appearances" Pagliery wrote.

A short time later, the Supreme Court denied Trump's request to block the Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee from gaining access to his personal tax returns, but they have only weeks to go until Republicans take control of the House in January.

A Manhattan federal judge ruled just after 3 p.m. that Trump will face the same legal action that ruined Cosby under New York’s new adult survivor’s law that will allow victims to sue their abusers, and rape accuser E. Jean Carroll's attorney said she believes the case will go to trial as soon as early February.

Just before 4 p.m., the former president's longtime personal accountant Donald Bender undermined the Trump Organization's defense by testifying that he would have died from a heart attack if he had been aware of the tax fraud scheme carried out by chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and others at the Trump Organization.

"On top of it all, these cases are playing out as Trump faces a new and very real threat of criminal indictment from the DOJ’s special counsel, Jack Smith, who was appointed last Friday by Attorney General Merrick Garland to look into Trump’s mishandling of classified materials, his attempts to obstruct that investigation, and the former president’s attempts to remain in power after he lost the 2020 election," Pagliery wrote.