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Donald Trump Threatens Club For Growth With Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuit

By Shoshana Weissmann

On Tuesday, the Washington Post published the cease and decist letter that Donald Trump’s lawyer reportedly sent Club for Growth president David M. McIntosh, along with the promise of a multi-million dollar lawsuit if the group doesn’t comply.

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The letter written by Donald Trump’s general counsel, Alan Garten, criticizes the Club for Growth’s anti-Trump ad, “Politician.”  Garten says they “are dismayed by the depths special interest groups like yours will go to in an attempt to materially mislead the public for the personal benefit of you and your financial backers.”

“Simply stated, your Attack Ad is not only completely disingenuous, but replete with outright lies, false, defamatory and destructive statements and downright fabrications which you fully know to be untrue, thereby exposing you and your so-called ‘club’ to liability for damages and other tortious harm. For example, while your Attack Ad blatantly misrepresents to the public that Mr. Trump ‘supports higher taxes’, nothing could be further from the truth. To be clear, Mr. Trump’s tax plan, which is scheduled to be released later this week, supports a lowering of taxes.”

Garten says “your supposed ‘source’ for this statement is — according to the small print on your website — nothing more than a single article published in the Advocate on February 15, 2000 which quoted Mr. Trump as supposedly saying he would ‘impose a one-time net worth tax of 14.25% on the superwealthy … to pay off the national debt.'” However, a quick Google search shows CNN and numerous other sources reported the same details. The statement from Trump in 1999 read, “I would impose a one-time 14.25% net worth tax on individuals and trusts with a net worth of over $10 million.”

Garten also notes, “the source article is more than 15 years old — your pitiful little group conveniently chose to leave that information out in a deliberate attempt to mislead the public into believing that it is reflective of Mr. Trump’s current position — when, unquestionably, it is not.” He reasons that because McIntosh repeatedly asserted Trump “supports higher taxes,” and because he has “absolutely no factual support for that statement,” he lied. “This is the very definition of libel.” 

Garten then goes onto remind McIntosh of the time he “very openly and shamelessly attempted to extort Mr. Trump to the tune of $1 million in exchange for your political support.”

“Indeed, you were not even the least bit discreet about your motives in that, after meeting with Mr. Trump, you immediately followed up with a June 2, 2015 letter requesting a ;contribution of $1 million’ in exchange for an endorsement by your organization’s political action committee. ‘This contribution,’ you proclaimed, ‘would have a dramatically positive impact on the Club’s ability to identify future free-enterprise champions.’ When Mr. Trump, however, presumably unlike many of the other candidates, refused to succumb to your extortionist demands, your only response was to oppose his inclusion in the August 6, 2015 Fox News Republican Presidential Debate, launch a series of misleading Attack Ads targeting Mr. Trump and, ultimately, endorse certain other candidates. Though your website states that donations to “Club for Growth … are NOT publicly disclosed”, one can only assume that the candidates you are endorsing paid handsomely for your support. American politics at its worst. If that is not a ‘shake-down’, I do not know what is.”

The letter ends, noting,

“Mr. Trump has authorized our legal team to take all necessary and appropriate actions to bring an immediate halt to your defamatory Attack Ads. In the interest of avoiding what will certainly be a costly litigation process, we are prepared to offer you the one-time opportunity to rectify this matter by providing us with your prompt written assurances that (i) you have stopped running the Attack Ads; and (ii) you will not generate or disseminate any misleading or inaccurate information or make any factually baseless accusations you know to be untrue with respect to my client at any point in the future. In the event, however, we do not promptly receive these assurances, please be advised that we will commence a multi-million dollar lawsuit against you personally and your organization for your false and defamatory statements and the damage you have intentionally caused to my client’s interests as well as pursue all other remedies available to us at law or in equity.”

The Club does not seem to be backing down. Shortly after reports about the letter, they told Trump to “stop whining.”

While it is unclear whether Trump will actually file a multi-million dollar lawsuit, the charges would seem to fall on shaky legal ground, as the Club is using Trump’s own statements. Libel typically deals with things that are false. According to FindLaw, “The term ‘defamation’ is an all-encompassing term that covers any statement that hurts someone’s reputation. If the statement is made in writing and published, the defamation is called ‘libel.'”

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