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January 24, 2006

Trump Sues Author For Defamation, For Five Billion (With a B!)

This is the most luxurious, most beautiful, most huuuuuuge defamation suit ever.

In the lawsuit, Trump alleges that O'Brien and Warner knowingly made egregiously false and malicious statements about Trump, his family, his personal life and his business dealings, including statements grossly misrepresenting Trump's net worth. Those defamatory statements included statements that O'Brien claimed were based on three purported anonymous sources with "direct knowledge" of Trump's finances, that Trump "was not remotely close to being a billionaire," and that his "net worth was somewhere between $150 million and $250 million."
The lawsuit alleges that in publishing these false statements, O'Brien and Warner deliberately chose to ignore, among other things, voluminous and comprehensive financial information that Trump made available to them prior to the publication of the book, which confirmed conclusively that Trump's net worth is in the billions of dollars. Indeed, Forbes Magazine rigorously analyzed the very same books and records and other financial data that O'Brien and Warner chose to ignore, and concluded that Trump's net worth conservatively is at least $2.7 billion.

You know he doesn't care about the family stuff or allegations of womanizing. It's only that knock on his net worth that bothers him.

Based on the Forbes analysis, seems like they've got this guy. I suppose there's room for different interpretations, but there's a a wide gulf between $200 million and $2.7 billion.

I like this:

Trump also added that the book was "terribly written."

posted by Ace at 11:57 AM

Comments

fwiw - this post could use a "Bloom County" 'Bill the Cat as Donald Trump' graphic.

Damn the copyright violations.

Full speed ahead.

Posted by: BumperStickerist on January 24, 2006 12:12 PM

I love the fact that The Donald is suing them for $5 *billion* dollars in damages.

What, a gazillion was too over-the-top?

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on January 24, 2006 12:13 PM

He oughta be after the guy who cut his hair.

Posted by: Monty on January 24, 2006 12:14 PM

You know he doesn't care about the family stuff or allegations of womanizing. It's only that knock on his net worth that bothers him.

you have to be able to show damage to make the big duccats, and misrepresenting his net worth can seriously damage his ability to make the deals that make him the cash

talking smack about his family does nothing to the bottom line so there's no point in suing

Posted by: on January 24, 2006 12:16 PM

I'm not reading the book unless Osama endorses it.

Posted by: TallDave on January 24, 2006 12:17 PM

You beat me to it, Monts.

If he wins, maybe he'll be able to afford a better rug than the one he's wearing. Anything that cheesy can't be real.

Posted by: kevlarchick on January 24, 2006 12:17 PM

Let's see, he wins the $5 billion, gives about 1/2 to his lawyer - badabing - Net worth? $2.7 Billion.

It's huge, the biggest idea yet. That's what I'm talking about here.

Posted by: wiserbud on January 24, 2006 12:28 PM

It's funny that Trump is using Forbes as his measure when about 10 years ago, he complained that they too had under-estimated his wealth... A vast majority of the people are always trying to get off Forbes list, only Trump and a few others are so vain to demand that they SHOULD be included on the list.

Posted by: JFH on January 24, 2006 12:28 PM

I'm guessing about $4.9 billion of that is punitive damages, for putting The Donald through the mental anguish of reading a book.

Posted by: utron on January 24, 2006 12:33 PM

He oughta be after the guy who cut his hair.

That's hair? I thought it was a dead rodent.

Posted by: Mike in Wyoming on January 24, 2006 12:36 PM

Funny he didn't sue the NY Times. From the press release:

"The lawsuit further alleges that the defamatory statements were made not only in O'Brien's book, but also in a major article published in the New York Times on the front page of its Sunday Business Section, containing excerpts from the book, as well as in interviews of O'Brien about the book and the article"

Yet he didn't sue the Times for pulishing the stuff. Is he scared of them?

Posted by: sparkling personality on January 24, 2006 12:58 PM