Donald Trump has targeted his former attorney Michael Cohen with a $500 million lawsuit alleging "multiple breaches of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion, and breaches of contract by virtue of Defendant’s past service as Plaintiff’s employee and attorney."
Cohen's first move in April was a motion to dismiss Trump's case. Trump responded with opposition to that, and Cohen's latest document is a blistering takedown of every minute accusation in Trump's lawsuit. It not only mocks the suit as something that isn't even based on the reality of law, but also destroys the unprofessional carelessness with which Trump's lawyers penned the filing.
"Plaintiff Donald J. Trump's sprawling and baseless Complaint appears to have two aims: retaliating against and intimidating Mr. Cohen, and distracting from Mr. Trump's mounting and serious criminal exposure," the filing begins.
Trump was indicted in Florida earlier this month and arraigned a week later on a slew of federal crimes for the alleged theft of documents from the White House and obstruction in trying to get them back. There is also a state suit from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and possible "criminal exposure" in Georgia coming at the end of the summer.
The response walks through Trump's failure on standing, the fact that his complaints are far outside of the statute of limitations (one year, in NY, or two years at most in Florida), and "based on misconstructions of the relevant facts and law."
"Trump fails to show any standing to enforce the Confidentiality Agreement and conspicuously stops short of asserting that he is a party to or even a third-party beneficiary of the agreement," it continues.
Another comment in the Cohen motion notes that Trump cites "Florida" when it comes to the allegations of Cohen breaching his "fiduciary duty." Trump claims he suffered an "injury" as a result of Cohen, but not that the injury happened in Florida. It's likely because any work Cohen did for the Trump Org. was in New York before Trump left the White House and moved to Florida.
The filing comments that Trump appears to go back and forth, sometimes using Florida law and sometimes New York law. It is all in an effort to apply whichever laws are the most beneficial to his case, according to Cohen.
"Mr. Trump does not address this argument in his Opposition, nor does he attempt to explain why, having invoked protections of New York law and claimed that Mr. Cohen's fiduciary obligations flown therefrom, New York law should not apply to his claims," the filing says.
Trump filed the suit in Florida, despite Cohen never working for him while Trump considered his residence to be Mar-a-Lago. That returns to Cohen's statute of limitations argument. They say that for the suit to be considered under Florida law, Trump would have had to file the suit at a time before he was even an actual Florida resident.
One of Trump's requests in his response to Cohen's motion to dismiss was that he needed to amend his claim to provide additional information. Cohen's motion mocks the request as pointless, because the whole lawsuit purportedly isn't based in fact to begin with.
"Mr. Trump requests that he be granted leave to amend the Complaint 'to provide further particularized allegations of fact supportive of [his] claims or standing.' His request should be denied. Mr. Trump's claims are deficient as a foundational level they are untimely, impermissibly duplicative of each other, and he lacks standing to assert them. They cannot be cured by additional allegations, so amendment would be futile."
Side-stepping legalese, Cohen's motion ultimately says that Trump's allegations "rely on selective quotation of pertinent documents, omission of critical information, and obfuscation of inconvenient facts." One of those key documents that Trump refers to is the agreement between him and Cohen. It isn't attached to Trump's filing as an exhibit as proof.
Read the full filing below or at the link here.
