The American Bar Association (ABA) commissioned a report on Donald Trump’s history of filing frivolous lawsuits but chose not to publish it for fear of being sued themselves, the New York Times reported Monday.
A group of media lawyers from the ABA commissioned the report titled “Donald J. Trump Is a Libel Bully but Also a Libel Loser” which found the GOP nominee has a long history of filing lawsuits against his opponents but has rarely won in court.
“Donald J. Trump is a libel bully,” the report said. “Like most bullies, he’s also a loser, to borrow from Trump’s vocabulary.”
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Trump has threatened to sue the Times after its report on women who accused him of sexual assault. And over the weekend, Trump threatened to sue the women who have accused him of kissing and groping them without their consent.
“Every one of these liars will be sued once the election is over,” Trump said Saturday at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. “I look so forward to doing that.”
The Media Law Resource Center, a trade association of law firms and media companies, has published the report on its website.
The report, written by First Amendment lawyer Susan E. Seager, found several free speech-related lawsuits filed by Trump and his companies including suits against an architecture critic, an author, a former student at Trump University and a former Miss Pennsylvania contestant.
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David J. Bodney, a former chairman of the ABA, told the Times it was “ironic” the association chose not to publish the report.
“It is more than a little ironic,” Bodney told the Times, “that a publication dedicated to the exploration of First Amendment issues is subjected to censorship when it seeks to publish an article about threats to free speech.”
The Times obtained internal communications from the ABA, including one from deputy executive director James Dimos which appeared to point to potential lawsuits as a factor in its decision.
“While we do not believe that such a lawsuit has merit, it is certainly reasonable to attempt to reduce such a likelihood by removing inflammatory language that is unnecessary to further the article’s thesis,” Dimos wrote in an email. “Honestly, it is the same advice members of the forum would provide to their own clients.”
For their part the ABA denied fears over a lawsuit played a role in the decision not to publish.
“We thought it was an insightful article, and we asked them to consider minor edits,” ABA spokeswoman Carol Stevens told the Times.
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