Trump at trial

The Post published an article last summer about a Trump deposition in a 2007 case. I had not seen it until today.

The lawyer gave Donald Trump a note, written in Trump’s own handwriting. He asked Trump to read it aloud.

[...]

“Peter, you’re a real loser,” Trump began reading.

[...]

The mogul had sent the note to a reporter, objecting to a story that said Trump owned a “small minority stake” in a Manhattan real estate project. Trump insisted that the word “small” was incorrect. Trump continued reading: “I wrote, ‘Is 50 percent small?’ ”

“This [note] was intended to indicate that you had a 50 percent stake in the project, correct?” said the lawyer. “That’s correct,” Trump said.

[...]

LAWYER: Mr. Trump, do you own 30 percent or 50 percent of the limited partnership?

TRUMP: I own 30 percent.

[...]

In 2005, O’Brien, then a reporter for the New York Times, had published a book called “Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald.” In the book, O’Brien cited people who questioned a claim at the bedrock of Trump’s identity — that his net worth was more than $5 billion. O’Brien said he had spoken to three people who estimated that the figure was between $150 million and $250 million.

[...]

Trump sued. He later told The Post that he intended to hurt O’Brien, whom he called a “lowlife sleazebag.”

“I didn’t read [the book], to be honest with you. . . . I never read it. I saw some of the things they said,” Trump said later. “I said: ‘Go sue him. It will cost him a lot of money.’ ”

And, apparently, even then he didn't have lawyers who could convince him that he was opening himself up for having his actual financial status proven beyond a doubt.

For two straight days, they asked Trump question after question that touched on the same theme: Trump’s honesty.

[...]

The lawyers were relentless. Trump, the bigger-than-life mogul, was vulnerable — cornered, out-prepared and under oath.

Thirty times, they caught him.

  WaPo

Thirty times in one deposition in one case.

That deposition — 170 transcribed pages — offers extraordinary insights into Trump’s relationship with the truth. Trump’s falsehoods were unstrategic — needless, highly specific, easy to disprove.

Common for both pathological liars and people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Both of those disorders are clearly lodged in Trump's personality.

When caught, Trump sometimes blamed others for the error or explained that the untrue thing really was true, in his mind, because he saw the situation more positively than others did.

Classic NPD.

“Have you ever lied in public statements about your properties?” the lawyer asked.

“I try and be truthful,” Trump said. “I’m no different from a politician running for office. You always want to put the best foot forward.”

Even if it's not your foot.

Trump has had a habit of telling demonstrable untruths during his presidential campaign. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker has awarded him four Pinocchios — the maximum a statement can receive — 39 times since he announced his bid last summer. In many cases, his statements echo those in the 2007 deposition: They are specific, checkable — and wrong.

The Post article sets out several of these campaign and early presidential lies. I won't bother quoting or repeating them here. You've seen them all.

But, even under the spotlight of this campaign, Trump has never had an experience quite like this deposition on Dec. 19 and 20, 2007.

He was trapped in a room — with his own prior statements and three high-powered lawyers.

[...]

“A very clear and visible side effect of my lawyers’ questioning of Trump is that he [was revealed as] a routine and habitual fabulist,” said Timothy L. O’Brien, the author Trump had sued.

This part is fun:

The questions began with that handwritten note and the 50 percent stake that wasn’t 50 percent.

“The 30 percent equates to much more than 30 percent,” Trump explained. His reasoning was that he had not been required to put up money at the outset, so his 30 percent share seemed more valuable.

“Are you saying that the real estate community would interpret your interest to be 50 percent, even though in limited partnership agreements it’s 30 percent?” Ceresney asked.

“Smart people would,” Trump said.

“Smart people?”

“Smart people would say it’s much more than 30 percent.”

I don't think "smart" means what he thinks it means. I bet that really was a fun case for O'Brien's lawyers.

TRUMP: I got more than a million dollars, because they have tremendous promotion expenses, to my advantage. In other words, they promote, which has great value, through billboards, through newspapers, through radio, I think through television – yeah, through television.

And they spend – again, I’d have to ask them, but I bet they spend at least a million or two million or maybe even more than that on promoting Donald Trump.

LAWYER: But how much of the payments were cash?

TRUMP: Approximately $400,000.

LAWYER: So when you say publicly that you got paid more than a million dollars, you’re including in that sum the promotional expenses that they pay?

TRUMP: Oh, absolutely, yes. That has a great value. It has a great value to me.

Apparently, more than $600,000.

As the deposition went on, the lawyers led Trump through case after case in which he’d overstated his success.

[...]

In 2009, a judge dismissed Trump’s case against O’Brien. Trump appealed, but in 2011 that was denied, too.

[...]

In a brief statement this week, Trump said he felt the lawsuit was a success, despite his loss.

“O’Brien knows nothing about me,” Trump said. “His book was a total failure and ultimately I had great success doing what I wanted to do — costing this third rate reporter a lot of legal fees.”

O’Brien, now executive editor of Bloomberg View, said Trump got that wrong. The publisher and insurance companies covered the cost.

“Donald Trump lost his lawsuit and, unlike him, it didn’t cost me a penny to litigate it,” he said.

He's in deep doo-doo over the Mueller investigation unless something scandalous and perhaps illegal is pulled to protect him, and I wouldn't rule that out. But, if it's just a matter of him being able to make it through questioning by Mueller, it's a foregone conclusion: his lawyers should do everything they can to prevent that from happening. And this is why he couldn't get the best lawyers to represent him. They know him too well.