Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer with a
horse, new book says
New York Times reporter David Enrich also says White
House counsel Donald McGahn once called senior Trump aides ‘morons’
@MartinPengelly
Mon 5 Sep
2022 01.00 EDT
Donald Trump once tried to pay a lawyer he owed $2m
with a deed to a horse.
The bizarre
scene is described in Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump and
the Corruption of Justice, a book by David Enrich of the New York Times that
will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
Enrich
reports that “once he regained the capacity for speech”, the lawyer to whom
Trump offered a stallion supposedly worth $5m “stammered … ‘This isn’t the
1800s. You can’t pay me with a horse.’”
Accounts of
Trump refusing to pay legal and other bills are legion. In New York, his
business and tax affairs are the subject of civil and criminal investigations.
Trump’s
reluctance to pay legal fees also featured in his attempt to overturn his
defeat in the 2020 election, which has landed him in further legal jeopardy.
In another
forthcoming book, Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor, Andrew
Kirtzman reports that in January 2021 Rudy Giuliani’s girlfriend sought $2.5m
from Trump, for the former New York mayor’s legal work on the attempt to block
Joe Biden’s win and for “defending you during the Russia hoax investigation and
then the impeachment”.
Maria Ryan,
Kirtzman writes, made the request in the same letter in which she requested
that Giuliani receive a “general pardon” and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Ryan was
not successful. The New York Times has reported that Trump told advisers Giuliani
“would only get ‘paid on the come’, a reference to a bet in the casino game
craps that is essentially payment on a successful roll of the dice”.
Enrich’s
book places particular focus on Trump’s relationship with Jones Day, a giant US
law firm, and the role played by Donald McGahn, a partner, in Trump’s 2016
campaign and then in the White House.
It was not
all plain sailing. Enrich quotes an unnamed Jones Day associate as saying that
in the early days of the campaign, after a Trump Tower meeting with Corey
Lewandowski and Alan Garten, close Trump aides, McGahn said: “These guys are
morons.”
McGahn,
Enrich writes, “disputed the quotes attributed to him, particularly the word
‘moron’”. He has, however, previously been reported to have called Trump “King
Kong” behind his back.
McGahn was
Trump’s first White House counsel. A member of the rightwing Federalist
Society, he worked with the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, on an
unprecedented stacking of the federal judiciary with conservative hardliners,
which ultimately included three supreme court picks.
McGahn
resigned in 2018, after it was revealed he cooperated extensively with Robert
Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian election interference and
links between Trump and Moscow.
Enrich
describes Trump’s “reputation for short-changing his lawyers (and banks and
contractors and customers)” but says that in the case of Jones Day, “against
all odds, Trump paid and paid again”.
In contrast
to the description of the alleged “morons” remark, Enrich’s story about Trump
trying to pay a debt with a horse does not identify the attorney involved.
FILES-US-MIDEAST-MOROCCO-DIPLOMACY<br>(FILES)
In this file photo taken on September 11, 2020 US President Donald Trump
listens to Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner in the Oval Office of
the White House in Washington, DC. - The United Arab Emirates is getting
top-of-the-line fighter jets. Morocco is winning recognition for decades-old
territorial claims. And Sudan is coming off the
Describing
“a lawyer at a white-shoe firm” who worked for Trump in the 1990s, Enrich
writes: “The bill came to about $2m and Trump refused to pay.
“After a
while, the lawyer lost patience, and he showed up, unannounced, at Trump Tower.
Someone sent him up to Trump’s office. Trump was initially pleased to see him –
he didn’t betray any sense of sheepishness – but the lawyer was steaming.
“‘I’m
incredibly disappointed,’ he scolded Trump. ‘There’s no reason you haven’t paid
us.’
“Trump made
some apologetic noises. Then he said: ‘I’m not going to pay your bill. I’m
going to give you something more valuable.’ What on earth is he talking about?
the lawyer wondered. ‘I have a stallion,’ Trump continued. ‘It’s worth $5m.’
Trump rummaged around in a filing cabinet and pulled out what he said was a
deed to a horse. He handed it to the lawyer.”
Enrich
describes the lawyer’s stunned and angry response, in which he threatened to
sue.
Trump,
Enrich writes, “eventually coughed up at least a portion of what he owed”.
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário