Legal experts mocked Donald Trump’s lawsuit against his niece, Mary Trump, The New York Times and three of its reporters on Tuesday and explained why it’s a dud.
Trump is seeking damages of at least $100 million for what he has called an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records that were used in reporting on his finances.
“Yeah, I’m going to go out on a limb and say this isn’t going anywhere,” Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general in the Obama White House, told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday night.
“I mean, He’s complaining about stuff that happened a year ago. If the harm’s so great, you wait until now?” he asked.
“And, you know, the big problem is here is something Trump hasn’t read but we know, it’s called the First Amendment, freedom of press,” Katyal continued. “Good luck, Donald Trump, challenging that and suing The New York Times. This one, I think, we know the results already.”
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance was suspicious about Trump’s motive for the lawsuit.
“It does sound very much like someone who’s desperate to try to turn the tables and certainly the former president has a history of trying to abuse the legal system for his own benefit,” Vance told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “So this looks like another chapter in that same book.”
Former prosecutor Katie Phang summed it like this:
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