The story, titled Donald Trump's Companies Destroyed Emails in Defiance of Court Orders, went live at 7 AM Eastern time.
Here’s the opening paragraph:
Over the course of decades, Donald Trump’s companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders. These tactics—exposed by a Newsweek review of thousands of pages of court filings, judicial orders and affidavits from an array of court cases—have enraged judges, prosecutors, opposing lawyers and the many ordinary citizens entangled in litigation with Trump. In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records.
As a side note, before I proceed with examining the story, anyone who has paid attention to Trump for any period of time is probably aware of the general thrust of the story, including the fact that emails and other records were destroyed when they were being sought in court actions.
What Eichenwald has done is to go back to the early 1970s Federal complaint about discrimination against Blacks in Trump housing and show a consistent pattern of obfuscation, delay, and more.
Consider this paragraph:
Trump’s use of deception and untruthful affidavits, as well as the hiding or improper destruction of documents, dates back to at least 1973, when the Republican nominee, his father and their real estate company battled the federal government over civil charges that they refused to rent apartments to African-Americans. The Trump strategy was simple: deny, impede and delay, while destroying documents the court had ordered them to hand over.
Eichenwald strongly supports the assertions in that paragraph with details.
After an detailed look into this case, in which somehow the Trumps and their business managed to escape legal sanctions — which imho should NOT have happened — Eichenwald transitions to another case:
Courts are loath to impose sanctions when litigants fail to comply with discovery demands; in order to hurry cases along, judges frequently issue new orders setting deadlines and requirements on parties that fail to produce documents. But Trump and his companies did get sanctioned for lying about the existence of a crucial document to avoid losing a suit.
Again Eichenwald provides the details to support this paragraph.
There is a detailed examination of another case, in which eventually the statements made under oath by people in the Trump organization were found to be false, sanctions could not be imposed in large part because the relevant documents had been destroyed.
There is too much detail for me to go through and summarize. There may be too much to make it an issue per se in what is left of the campaign. But let me offer Eichenwald’s concluding paragraph, as I again strongly urge you to read the entire piece. Then I will offer a few comments of my own.
This review of Trump’s many decades of abusing the judicial system, ignoring judges, disregarding rules, destroying documents and lying about it is not simply a sordid history lesson. Rather, it helps explain his behavior since he declared his candidacy. He promised to turn over his tax returns and his health records—just as he promised to comply with document discovery requirements in so many lawsuits—then reneged. As a result, he has left a sparse evidentiary trail that can be used to assess his wealth, his qualifications for the presidency or even his fitness. Should voters choose him to be the next U.S. president, he will enter the Oval Office as a mystery, a man who has repeatedly flouted the rules. He has solemnly told the country to trust him while refusing to produce any records to prove whether he speaks the truth or has utter contempt for it.
As I read the article, and encountered numerous cases where Trump changed his statements to try to avoid any kind of liability for what he had previously said, it seemed very much in keeping with what we have seen about him since the campaign began. In effect, the campaign has been one giant “Gish Gallop” where Trump offers outrageous statement after outrageous statement, then challenges you when you attempt to call him on it, then changes the subject slightly.
Given his track record, no sensible person would ever engage in a business transaction with him unless (a) he paid full freight up front and (b) committed to a legally binding arbitration by an arbiter selected without his input. Otherwise you’d be setting yourself up to be ripped off with no recourse. And that is exactly what is being presented to the American people.
Two things perhaps worth reminding people of if you pass this article on in an attempt to persuade them of the dangers of Mr. Trump.
1. No American bank will finance his businesses because of his track record.
2. When the Comey letter was released, the stock market tanked. It only began to recover when people in financial markets began to understand that, in the words of Gertrude Stein about Oakland, there was “no there there.”
In short, real businessmen know one thing for sure. Donald Trump is bad for business.
Sorry I cannot offer more. Have much to do before tomorrow’s surgery. But wanted to be sure people saw this.
Peace.