As a perennial litigant, Trump weaponized the law to devastate perceived enemies, to consolidate power, to frustrate opposing parties, as former federal prosecutor and acclaimed author James D. Zirin illuminates in his compelling and disturbing history of Trump’s use and abuse of the law, Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits (All Points Books).
Mr. Zirin is a distinguished veteran attorney who spent decades handling complex litigation. He is also a self-described “middle of the road Republican.” Plaintiff in Chief stands as his response to Trump’s disrespect for law and our legal system. He stresses that the book is a legal study, not a partisan takedown.
In his book, Mr. Zirin scrupulously documents Trump’s life in courts of law. Based on more than three years of extensive research, the book examines illustrative cases and how they reflect on the character and moral perspective of the current president. The details are grounded in more than 3,500 lawsuits filed by Trump and against Trump. Litigation usually involves sworn affidavits attesting to accuracy and testimony given under oath if a trial occurs, so Mr. Zirin is able to reference page after page of irrefutable evidence of Trump's legal maneuvering, misstatements, hyperbole, and outright lies.
As Mr. Zirin points out, Trump learned how to use the law from his mentor, the notoriously unprincipled lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn whose motto was “Fuck the law.” Trump took Cohn’s scorched earth strategy to heart and used the law to attack others, to never accept blame or responsibility, and to always claim victory no matter how badly he lost.
”Trump saw litigation as being only about winning,” Mr. Zirin writes. “He sued at the drop of a hat. He sued for sport; he sued to achieve control; and he sued to make a point. He sued as a means of destroying or silencing those who crossed him. He became a plaintiff in chief.”
And Trump also has been a defendant in hundreds of legal actions, as Mr. Zirin details. In 2016, there were 160 federal lawsuits pending in which he was a named defendant, as well as numerous other investigations and proceeding. Mr. Zirin observes that Trump “has been sued for race and sex discrimination, sexual harassment, fraud, breach of trust, money laundering, defamation, stiffing his creditors, defaulting on loans, and . . . he [has] been investigated for deep ties to the Mob, which he enjoyed over the years.”
And Trump’s pattern of disrespect and contempt for the law persists. As Mr. Zirin writes, "All this aberrant behavior would be problematic in a businessman. . . But the implications of such conduct in a man who is the president of the United States are nothing less than terrifying."
Mr. Zirin is a leading litigator who has appeared in federal and state courts around the nation. He is a former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York under the legendary Robert M. Morgenthau. His other books include Supremely Partisan-How Raw Politics Tips the Scales in the United States Supreme Court and The Mother Court, on great trials from the Southern District of New York in the mid-twentieth century. His articles have appeared in array of publications including Time, Forbes, Barron’s, The Los Angeles Times, The London Times, and others.
Mr. Zirin also hosts the critically acclaimed television talk show Conversations with Jim Zirin Digital Age, which airs weekly throughout the New York metropolitan area. In August 2003, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg appointed him to the New York City Commission to Combat Police Corruption. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A graduate of Princeton University with honors, he received his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School where he was an editor of the Michigan Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif.
Mr. Zirin graciously responded to questions on his study of Donald Trump by telephone from his office in New York.
Robin Lindley: Congratulations on your new book Mr. Zirin, and on your distinguished legal career. In your book, you chronicle Donald Trump’s life as a ruthless litigator for almost a half century. How did you come to write Plaintiff in Chief on Trump’s life through more than 3,500 lawsuits?
James D. Zirin: About three years ago, a friend suggested that I write a biography of Roy Cohn. I knew Roy Cohn. He was an unscrupulous lawyer. He was disbarred 1986, about three years before he died. And he was Trump's lawyer and confidant, and their relationship was very close, very intimate. He boasted to a journalist that he and Trump spoke about five or six times a day. This was before Trump had any notion of seeking political office.
Cohn really taught Trump everything he knows about waging what I call asymmetrical warfare, weaponizing the law and using litigation as a means to attain the various objectives that he had. They met in a bar in 1973 just after Trump had been named as a defendant along with his father in a race discrimination in housing suit brought by the Justice Department. Trump had a number of lawyers and normally a suit like that ends quickly with a consent decree with the defendant agreeing that he or she won't discriminate anymore without accepting or admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint.
Cohn had a different recipe for going forward. He liked to beat the system. He'd been indicted three times by the legendary prosecutor Robert M. Morgenthau, and he'd been acquitted three times. Cohn’s recipe was fight, and he taught Trump the tools he used. Number one is, if you're charged with anything, counterattack. Rule number two is, if you're charged with anything, try to undermine your adversary. Rule number three is work the press. Rule number four is lie. It doesn't matter how tall a tale it is, but repeat it again and again. Rule number five is settle the case, claim victory, and go home. And that's exactly what happened in the race discrimination case.
So anyway, I created a book proposal, which I sent to my agent and my publisher, St. Martin's Press. In its wisdom, the Press said I should try to write a larger book about the influence of litigation on Donald Trump because that's the way he had conducted himself in the 40 years before he achieved office, and I should use Cohn perhaps as a springboard but the book should center on Trump and what experience he had had in litigation. So, I did that and that's how I came to create the book.
Robin Lindley: It's a remarkable and chilling account of Trump's life through the prism of his legal affairs. You stress in the book that the two most powerful influences in his life were Roy Cohn and his father, Fred Trump.
James D. Zirin: Yes. His father, of course, was a defendant as well in the race discrimination cases. His father was also a real estate operator and he came up against the government in the arena of FHA loans. He was accused of profiteering. He testified before a Senate committee and was interrogated by Senator Lehman. He made a lot of money by mortgaging out with FHA loans in ways that they were never intended. Then when he was asked about the profits, he said he had never withdrawn the money from the bank, so therefore there were no profits. That was ridiculous. But here is an example of saying something that's totally ridiculous for public consumption that somehow or other some people will believe. And that's the approach Trump has used professionally and that's the approach he continues to use in office.
Robin Lindley: Were you ever involved in litigation with Donald Trump?
James D. Zirin: No. I never was. I met him several times, and I met him with Roy Cohn several times.
When I first met Cohn, I was an Assistant US Attorney and Cohn was being investigated by a federal grand jury. I worked for Robert M. Morgenthau then and that investigation resulted in indictments. Cohn was in the anteroom of the grand jury chamber and witnesses were waiting to testify and he raised his open hand in what might be interpreted as a high five. I naively thought it was a high five to encourage the witnesses since they were facing the daunting experience of testifying before a grand jury. And it wasn't the high five at all. He was telling them to take the Fifth.
That’s how Cohn operated and that's the way Trump operates. It's saying something that's highly incriminating and doing something that's highly incriminating, but doing it in a way so that you have total deniability if anyone calls you out for it.
Robin Lindley: What was your impression of Trump when you met him decades ago?
James D. Zirin: I really met him only to shake hands. I never met him to talk with him, but I knew of his reputation. I knew he didn't pay his bills. I knew he didn't pay his lawyers. I knew he'd been in bankruptcy five times, and I knew about his Atlantic City casinos. I knew he'd been sued a number of times. And I knew that he had been a plaintiff an extraordinary number of times. He sued journalists. He sued small business people for using the Trump name. He sued women who he was involved with. He sued his wives even after a divorce, both Ivana and Marla Maples. And I knew that a lot of settlements he entered during litigation were kept under seal in the files of the court so the public would never know the terms of the settlements.
In one major litigation effort, you had the so-called Polish brigade case which involved the construction of Trump Tower that opened in 1983.Trump had undocumented Polish workers and he did not contribute to the union pension fund as he was required to do. There was litigation and it was eventually settled for 100 cents on the dollar after lengthy litigation including a trial in which the trial judge said Trump's testimony was completely lacking in credibility. But the case was settled. We never knew what the terms of settlement were except, about 20 years later, a judge unsealed the settlement papers and it turned out that Trump had settled for 100 cents on the dollar.
Robin Lindley: Full disclosure: I'm a lifelong Democrat and I think most in my party would agree with your history and characterization of Trump.
James D. Zirin: I'm actually a lifelong Republican and I'm decidedly anti-Trump because I don't think he represents the values of the country or the Constitution of America. I think he's been a rogue president.
Robin Lindley; I agree. A lot has happened since your book came out, with Trump’s reaction to the Mueller report, his impeachment, his weaponizing of the Department of Justice, and more suits against the media and others. And Trump continues to follow the Cohn rules. Trump famously said he needed a Roy Cohn. Does he have his Roy Cohn now in William Barr, the Attorney General?
James D. Zirin: Many people have suggested that. I think Barr is more of an ideologue. He's not an unscrupulous lawyer as Roy Cohn was.
Roy Cohn represented mobsters and he was a crook. He was eventually disbarred because he stole $100,000 from a client. He was disbarred because his yacht went up in flames and a crew member was killed. He collected the insurance. It was supposed to go to his creditors, but instead he pocketed the money. He was disbarred because he made a false and misleading statements on an application to become a member of the DC bar, and there was a disbarment hearing. Trump was one of a number of his character witnesses and he testified to Cohn’s good reputation for honesty, integrity, truth and veracity. And of course, Cohn’s reputation for honesty, integrity, truth and veracity was very bad.
And after Cohn was disbarred in 1986, Trump distanced and himself from Cohn, but that was not for long because Cohn died three weeks thereafter. There was a funeral and Trump stood in the back of the room and delivered no eulogy, and never said much more about him.
What we do know about how close the relationship is that 30 years later, in 2016, when Trump was elected president, he turned to gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a friend of his, and he said, “Cindy, if Roy were here, he never would've believed it.” So we know that’s how close the relationship was. And, in the White House in 2017 when counsel Donald McGahn was dragging his feet about firing Sessions, Trump made the famous statement, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”
Robin Lindley: It seems to many observers that William Barr is acting as the president's personal attorney and has an authoritarian attitude about the Constitution and the role of the president while scoffing at the separation of powers.
James D. Zirin: That is easily said, but I don't think it's easily demonstrated because the Constitution does not say that the attorney general must be independent of the president. There is a tradition of independence in the justice department, particularly since Watergate where the Attorney General must serve the Constitution, and not the president, and if there's a conflict the Attorney General should do something to resolve that conflict.
I think Barr has been quite cavalier about observing that tradition. He doesn't believe in it. He is contrarian and a libertarian. He believes in the unitary executive so that Trump is free to do basically anything he wants to do because he's the President of the United States. Barr has not been a check on Trump's unbridled abuse of power, but it's not really for the attorney general to do that. It's for the Congress to do that through the impeachment power, so you can't say that Barr has failed to ride herd on the president because he would take the view that that's not his obligation.
Robin Lindley: Thanks for explaining that view of the Attorney General’s role. Since your book came out the impeachment occurred. Senator Susan Collins thought the president would be chastened by that process. Of course, that hasn’t happened. How do you see Trump’s response to the impeachment and the unanimous Republican Congressional support of him, with the exception of Mitt Romney?
James D. Zirin:I think Trump believes he's above the law, and when I say the law, I mean the law including the Constitution.
The Republicans in the Senate were willing to give him a pass for various reasons. I suppose they could rationalize it. They could say, number one, it was for the American people ultimately to decide on whether he should remain in office and we have an election coming up in a few months. And number two, what Trump did was bad perhaps, but it wasn't so bad as to amount to an impeachable offense. Impeachable offenses are what two thirds of the Senate say they are was going to be.
I don't think anyone ever thought that two thirds of the United States Senate would vote to remove him from office. But the Constitution provides for a trial and it's supposed to be presided over by the Chief Justice. And this was not a trial. It was a travesty because who has ever had a trial where the prosecution can't call witnesses to present the evidence. And that's what Romney was extremely upset about.
I think it was a Senator Lamar Alexander's who said we don't need witnesses because, if five people say you left the scene of the accident, why call a sixth? And so, it was pretty much uncontested what the facts were, and what is to be made of those facts is up to the United States Senate under our Constitution. It shows that the hoary document we call the Constitution of the United States, which we put on a pedestal and supposedly has iconic significance, is an 18th century document that in the real world is pretty inefficient in curbing the powers of a tyrannical president. And I think that history will record that.
Robin Lindley: And Trump responded that the impeachment was “a hoax” and said his letter to Ukranian President Zelensky was “perfect.” He actually asked a foreign government to interfere in an American election. It seems a high crime and misdemeanor under the Constitution. Elections are sacrosanct in a democracy.
James D. Zirin:Well, that's true. And a high crime and misdemeanor does not have to be a crime that's in the United States Code, although this amounted to an invitation for a bribe, but also amounted to extortion, both of which are in the United States Code.
But at the time of the enactment of the Constitution, there was no United States Code. The Constitution mentions bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. It was quite clear from the Federalist papers and the ruminations of Hamilton and Madison and others that abusive presidential power was an impeachable offense. And here you certainly have an abuse where Trump was using the foreign policy of the United States and the leverage of withholding funds for military aid that were authorized by Congress in order to achieve a domestic political advantage and benefit himself.
Robin Lindley: And Trump continues to bring lawsuits from the White House. In the last couple of weeks, he's sued the New York Times and CNN for defamation. Of course, he'll never appear to be deposed, so those lawsuits will probably go nowhere. He continues to use the law as a weapon. You chronicle that sort of abuse of the legal system for the last 45 years or so.
James D. Zirin: That's right. He has sued a lot of writers. Before he took public office, he sued the journalist Tim O'Brien for daring to write that his net worth was overstated. They took his deposition, and he demonstrably lied at least 32 times under oath, and the case was eventually dismissed. The defense was able to show the truth that, in fact, he had overstated his net worth. That was one of Trump’s sore points and he sued whenever someone said he was worth less than he believed should be stated. But O'Brien won his case.
And he brought other cases against journalists. He sued an architectural critic for the Chicago Tribune for suggesting that one of his buildings, which wasn't even up but was planned, would be an eyesore on the horizon. The judge threw the case out because of the rule of opinions. To succeed in a libel action, you have to show that a statement of fact which is defamatory and false was made of and concerning the plaintiff. The architect stated an opinion that the building would be an eyesore on the horizon, and that's not something that could ever be libelous.
Robin Lindley: You use the term “truth decay” and Trump is probably responsible for either misstatements or outright lies on an average of at least 10 times a day. How does this pattern of lying fit into his attitude toward the law?
James D. Zirin: I think he enjoys lying. I think it's part of his DNA. I don't think he has any grasp of the facts at all, so he says whatever he thinks will help him and whatever comes into his head.
It is expedient, I suppose, to lie in litigation if you crossed an intersection through a red light. You can lie and say it was a green light and that changes the legal outcome of your case. And that's the way Trump operates. But he would go beyond that because he would say the heck with you and the horse you rode in on as he did in the House impeachment inquiry. Then, he denounced Adam Schiff and denounced Jerry Nadler and denounced the witnesses. He tried to subvert the whole proceeding by denouncing the whistleblower and by showing that those people who lined up against him were of low character and were themselves liars.
All of this goes back to Joe McCarthy because this is the way McCarthy operated. Then adversaries accused McCarthy of engaging in a witch hunt and accused McCarthy of generating these hoaxes. And of course, Roy Cohn was McCarthy’s chief counsel. And so he learned how useful those charges can be and how devastating they can be in any kind of controversy. And he taught all of that to Trump and Trump uses that to his great advantage.
Robin Lindley: Yes. And Trump certainly follows the Roy Cohn rule about declaring victory no matter how badly you lose.
James D. Zirin: Yes. Even that conversation with Zelensky he called “perfect,” and it was something other than perfect. I don't know whether he's going to say the Corona virus is a perfect hoax, but perfect is a word that recurs again and again in his lexicon.
Robin Lindley: Pardon me for this psychological observation, but you write that power and dominance are even more important to Trump than money. That seems pathological. And he seems to take a sadistic joy in attacking and ruining anyone he perceives as a foe of some sort.
James D. Zirin: Well, that's true.
In one of the cases that I describe in the book, he got wind of the fact that a small business, a travel agency conducted by father and daughter in Baldwin, Long Island, was using the name Trump Travel. Not Donald Trump Travel, but Trump Travel. They used Trump Travel because they were selling a bridge tours for people who play bridge, and “trump” is a bridge term. Also, like “Ace Hardware,” they thought “Trump” keynoted excellence. This was a little storefront travel agency in a small Long Island community. Trump had never been in the travel business and he never had any business involvement in Long Island, but he sued them. And at the end of the day, they were allowed to continue to use the name Trump Travel, but it had to make the lettering a little smaller. And they'd exhausted their life savings in defending the case. So he was quite sadistic about the way he went about it.
There was another similar case where an unrelated family named Trump from South Africa had a multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical business and Trump sued them. He'd never been in the pharmaceutical business and had never been in business at that point anywhere outside the United States. But this family had the wherewithal to defend the case and eventually the case was thrown out completely.
Robin Lindley: What are a few things you learned about Trump's ties to the Mob or organized crime?
James D. Zirin: In the first place, his father had ties to the mob. His partner was a man named Willie Tomasello who was a made man and they were partners in various real estate ventures.
Through Roy Cohn, Trump met leaders of the five families in New York, principally Fat Tony Salerno, Paul Castellano, and others who controlled the poured concrete business in New York. He also met John Cody who was a labor racketeer and president of the Teamsters.
At that time, particularly because of the mob involvement, poured concrete was a much more expensive way of constructing a building than structural steel. The poured concrete business was dominated by Castellano who was murdered, and Salerno who was eventually sent to jail for a term of about 99 years.
Trump retained these mafia companies to construct buildings out of poured concrete even though it was more expensive. We don't really know why he did that, but his mob ties ran quite deep. They existed in Atlantic City where he had a number of casinos, principally the Taj Mahal, which went bankrupt six months after its opening. At times, on a Tim Russert program and under oath, he denied that he had any contact with the mob, but he was warned by the FBI when he went into Atlantic City that he shouldn't deal with mobsters because it would ruin his reputation.
But Trump continued to have contact with mobsters. On at least two occasions, which I relate in the book, he admitted that he had ties with the mob. In the construction of Trump Tower, the Teamsters called a citywide strike. Construction trucks and concrete trucks didn't have access to construction sites, but mysteriously at Trump Tower poured-concrete trucks passed the picket lines and continued their work. Cody, the president of the Teamsters got not one, not two, but several condominium units at Trump Tower for a female friend of his who had no visible means of support.
Robin Lindley: Did you learn anything about Trump’s ties to the Russian mob and Russian oligarchs?
James D. Zirin: Yes. A lot of it is revealed in the book [by Craig Unger] House of Trump, House of Putin. But in 1986, a Russian oligarch walked into Trump Tower and he bought five condominium units with monies that had been wired from London and laundered from Russia. He was a member of the so-called Russian mafia. Eventually the Attorney General cracked down on it and made a finding that these apartments were purchased with laundered funds. So Trump’s ties to Russia go back at least that far, maybe further. And he has continued to deal with Russian oligarchs throughout his business career.
Robin Lindley: Money laundering is complicated to me. Can you say more about Trump and laundered funds?
James D. Zirin: Money laundering is where money comes from some illegal source and the money can't be reported, so the origin of the money must be concealed, and that's why it's called laundered money. A good way to conceal the source of money, particularly with money from Russia that is obtained by fraud or theft or in violation of Russian laws, is to buy a condominium unit in New York and the condominium unit is there and there's no tracing of the funds. The funds went to Trump and he deposited them in his bank accounts and he used it to pay his loans, and the origin and tracing of the funds just disappeared.
Robin Lindley: And you indicate that Trump has repeatedly used laundered money to hide illegal funds.
James D. Zirin: The interesting thing with Trump and the Russians is that Deutsche Bank was his principal lender. No other bank would touch him. He now owes about $365 million to Deutsche bank. At one point in time, he was in default on a debt service payment to Deutsche Bank and they were about to sue him. Trump tried to stop them with the same technique, a suit against the bank: a counter attack, suing for fraud in lending. Somehow or other that got resolved, and the debt service obligation was extended and another department of Deutsche Bank continued to lend him large sums of money. Now that’s very suspicious because what bank lends money to a customer who's been in default, number one, and number two, what bank lends the money to a customer who has sued them and charged them with fraud?
Deutsche Bank pleaded guilty to money laundering for Russian interests and there were definite ties between Deutsche Bank and the Russians, which have never been fully explored. Russian money in effect may have been used to guarantee Trump’s indebtedness. I think Trump's son Eric said on a number of occasions, and Donald Jr. said at a certain point in time that they couldn't get financing until they got it from Russia.
Robin Lindley: Yes, I recall that comment. Trump also has been able to keep his tax returns secret. How do you see his refusal to reveal his returns and its significance?
James D. Zirin: Trump’s five predecessors in office all had no trouble releasing their tax returns. Both Republicans and Democrats seem to regard this release as a tradition although there is no legal obligation imposed on a president to release his or her tax returns.
Trump's tax returns remain shrouded in mystery. Now, the District Attorney of New York County obtained a grand jury subpoena covering eight taxable years, and five of the eight were before Trump became president. He didn't subpoena Trump for them, but subpoenaed Trump's outside accountants and the Trump organization. Right up the line the courts sustained the subpoenas and said that the accountants had to comply, which they were willing to do except Trump had instructed them not to. That matter is now before the Supreme Court and will be argued in March. Presumably it'll be decided in June before this term of the Court ends.
In addition, committees of the House of Representatives have subpoenaed some tax returns and that matter is also before the Supreme Court.
Now, this is absolutely appalling. In the Second Circuit subpoena case brought by the Manhattan District Attorney, Cy Vance, Judge Chin questioned the lawyer for Trump in the Second Circuit. “Now your client said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and no one would mind. None of his followers would mind and would still vote for him. I suppose if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue a district attorney would investigate the case. Couldn't the police investigate the case? Couldn't they seize the gun? Couldn't they talk to witnesses?” Trump’s lawyer answered “No, your honor. He’s protected by the fact that he's president.” And if anyone buys that one, I think the rule of law is seriously compromised.
Robin Lindley: Yes. That goes back the wealth of evidence you present that Donald Trump has no regard for the rule of law or the Constitution.
James D. Zirin: Yes, if it gets in his way. He said that impeachment was unconstitutional even though impeachment is provided for in the Constitution. So he doesn't know what he's talking about as a legal matter.
There were also the instances of his undermining the judiciary, accusing judges who decide against him of being Obama judges or Mexican judges and taking them on individually as so-called judges. And he's undermined the judiciary in a way that's totally obnoxious to any lawyer who's dedicated to the rule of law.
Robin Lindley: He swore an oath to the Constitution as president and yet continues to attack the legal system and the rule of law.
James D. Zirin: Justice John Marshall said we're a government of laws, not men. He would've said today men and women. But Trump has attacked not only the legal system, but the judges who administer the legal system like Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg who he thinks should recuse themselves from all Trump-related cases. And again, he's gone after the individual judges.
Robin Lindley: You also point out his abusive treatment of women and his payments of hush money to his paramours.
James D. Zirin: He did that before he took office and that's why Vance wants to see Trump’s tax returns, to see how these payments were treated on his tax returns and perhaps to find payments to other women.
Robin Lindley: Since the book came out, have you received any backlash or criticism from Trump supporters or Republicans.
James D. Zirin: No. I'm often asked if I expect Trump to sue me, and I say I wish he would because it would help the sales of the book. The book Fire and Fury would have sold about 5,000 copies, but then when Trump tried to enjoin it, it was like “Banned in Boston” and it became a runaway bestseller and sold three million books.
I haven't received any backlash because the book is very well documented and everything in it is true, but the [Trump supporters’] response is basically, so what. The stock market is up. We have less regulation. The government is less intrusive in our lives, except maybe when it comes to abortion. [To Trump supporters] this is all a good thing. And they spit up the names Pelosi and Biden and Bernie Sanders, and they ask would you rather have someone who's going to tax and spend like Bernie Sanders who promises a chicken in every pot? Or would you rather have a Donald Trump whose policies are a good though he's a little ridiculous. That’s the comment.
Robin Lindley: In the context of your study of Trump’s attitudes and perspective on the law, how do you see Trump’s response to the public health crisis now of coronavirus?
James D. Zirin: The coronavirus is quite likely to be the undoing of Donald Trump, when his mendacity, ignorance and shallowness came into full view, an empirical reality, as indisputable as the laws of science or a Euclidian equation.
I saw it all coming and I cried aloud in my book “Plaintiff in Chief. “
Here’s a partial list of Trump’s lies about the coronavirus:
| In President Trump’s first public comments about the coronavirus, on Jan. 22, he assured people that it would not become a pandemic: “No. Not at all,” he told viewers of CNBC. “It’s going to be just fine.” |
| In the weeks that followed, he offered a series of similar reassurances: |
| “We have it very well under control.” |
| “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.” |
| “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along.” |
| “We’re going very substantially down, not up.” |
| “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” |
Robin Lindley: Do you have any words of wisdom now on the future of democracy and the rule of law? Trump has persisted in twisting the law to his interests or ignoring it in the lifelong pattern you portray vividly.
James D. Zirin: He has continued and I think he will continue. And I think the rule of law has been seriously undermined.
Our democracy has been seriously compromised because the framers of the Constitution never thought the system would work this way. Republican senators deserve part of the blame because of their need to retain power or whatever, they did not respect the oath they took to be fair and impartial judges of the facts and the law, but instead voted along party lines to acquit him.
Robin Lindley: Trump said sometime in the 90s, as you note in your book, that “I love to have enemies.” I think most of us wouldn't feel that way and it seems pathological to me. What did you think when you found that quote from him?
James D. Zirin: Most politicians are controversial and have political enemies. I think Trump relishes that perhaps more than others and he loves to attack them personally. We know Biden is “Sleepy Joe” and Elizabeth Warren is “Pocahontas” and Bernie Sanders is “Crazy Bernie.” He has nicknames for everyone and he revels in trashing them rather than addressing the merits of anything they propose.
Robin Lindley: The mentality of an eight-year-old bully, it seems. You write that Trump’s experience in lawsuits reflects “his inmost ulterior motivation.” This comes out in your responses, but could you sum up your sense of his character, motivation, and morality based on your extensive research?
James D. Zirin: His virulent combination of anti-science, anti-law, ignorance, irrational conspiracy theorizing, instability, narcissism and vindictiveness has led us to national catastrophe. If he is re-elected, I fear for the republic and the American people.
Robin Lindley: As you demonstrate, Trump is an anomaly in terms of the adversarial system. Do you have anything to add on his abuse of legal process?
James D. Zirin: Look, the adversary system is the crown jewel of our legal system. We got it from the British. The idea is that you had lawyers on both sides who were partisan, who were like the Knights Templar who rode into battle on behalf of somebody or other in the Middle Ages. That has been the best way of getting at the truth. In contrast, in civil law countries like France or Germany, the judge conducts the inquiry. The judge might ask questions of the lawyers, but the lawyers don't develop the evidence on both sides.
But adversary doesn't mean enemy. What Trump has demonstrated is that we have a great legal system and we all have the benefit of it. But there are also limitations for the law and those limitations can be exploited by someone determined to beat the system, and that's what Trump has done.
Robin Lindley. Thank you, Mr. Zirin and congratulations on your groundbreaking and compelling book on the life of Donald Trump through the perspective of his thousands of lawsuits. It's been an honor to talk with you.
This article was originally published at History News Network
