Legal challenges from women Donald Trump has slandered and sought to silence show just how tough Trump really is when he's backed into a corner. And more than anything, he's a craven wimp. At the moment, Trump is being hounded by two lawsuits in particular: one a defamation suit by former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos, who alleges Trump sexually assaulted her in 2007; and the slightly higher profile effort by adult film actress Stormy Daniels to invalidate her non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with Trump and his former lawyer Michael Cohen (Daniels has also filed a separate defamation suit against Trump).
Trump now has a September 28 deadline to provide written answers to questions from Zervos's attorney, according to documents obtained by CNN.
CNN has reached out to Trump's attorney, Marc Kasowitz, for comment.
No response. What's the matter, Dons, cat got your tongue?
As for the Daniels suit originally filed in March, Trump is in nothing short of full surrender mode, kneelin' and prayin' a federal judge doesn't order him to submit to a deposition. In dual filings last weekend, both Cohen and Trump sought to give Daniels pretty close to what she was originally asking for—rescinding the NDA—in hopes that she might disappear into the night never to be heard from again. Their retreat came after they initially rejected Daniels’ request to void the agreement, threatened her with a $20 million-dollar counter suit, and then quickly sought and secured a temporary pause on the proceedings after Cohen ran into that little flap where the FBI raided his premises in a criminal investigation in which he has now pleaded guilty to eight felony counts.
Sorry, fellas, Daniels and her attorney Michael Avenatti ain't going quietly, according to ABC News.
“The Court cannot simply allow [Trump and Cohen] to exit the case without facing any true consequences or a meaningful inquiry into the truth,” Avenatti wrote in a court filing Monday. “Terminating the case now after all of the lies, deceit, and chicanery…would be premature and would erode public confidence in the courts.”
Legal analysts differ about whether Trump and Cohen will succeed in making this debacle go away after initially puffing up their chests and trying to bully Daniels into submission. While it's true that they are effectively offering to give Daniels what she sought before filing the suit—dissolution of the NDA—it only comes after they spent months fighting and intimidating her, noted Naomi Mezey, a professor of law at Georgetown University.
“This is not just your normal abandonment of a particular claim. It's very public protestation of the basic facts of the lawsuit for six or seven months and then a capitulation when it looked like they were suddenly going to have to face a deposition,” Mezey told ABC. “The court may feel that it has a right to an explanation for why this lawsuit has been going on as long as it has if there is no case or controversy here, and in light of repeated claims to the contrary by the defendants.”
But no matter what happens, Trump has already lost by his own standards, detailed in Fear, the new book from veteran Watergate journalist Bob Woodward. On page 175, Woodward writes:
Trump gave some private advice to a friend who had acknowledged some bad behavior toward women. Real power is fear. It's all about strength. Never show weakness. You've always got to be strong. Don't be bullied. There is no choice.
"You've got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women," he said. "If you admit to anything and any culpability, then you're dead."
Zervos clearly concluded she had been too wronged to let herself be bullied again by the likes of Trump. And Daniels, a porn star, wasn't going to be shamed out of anything. Trump's nothing but a house of cards and this is just the beginning of his implosion.
Real power isn't necessarily fear. But by Trump's own standard, he's a gutless coward.