Trump Threatens To Sue Journalists For Exposing Potential Witness Tampering

ProPublica came out with a massive bombshell report this week about how Donald Trump gave huge payouts to witnesses in his various legal cases, but the outlet stopped short of calling this "witness tampering." Nevertheless, one of Trump's lawyers has sent notice to the outlet that they may have to sue them over their reporting, even though ProPublica made no assertions other than what they verified with receipts. A lawsuit would be a dumb decision by Trump, but that hasn't stopped him before, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

ProPublica came out with a massive story this week that basically laid out how Donald Trump, his campaign, his organization, his companies, all of that have been rewarding. The people who, of course were supposed to be testifying either against him or in favor of him in various different legal cases that Donald Trump is facing. So just to put it in a nutshell, let me read you this snippet from the ProPublica report. As published by Tech Dirtt, the benefits have flowed from Trump's businesses and campaign committees. According to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records, and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double from 26,000 to $53,500 per month. Another employee got a $2 million severance package, barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign's top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff where she's now the fourth highest paid employee.

These pay increases and other benefits often came at delicate moments in the legal proceedings against Trump. One aide who was given a plumb position on the board of Trump's social media company, for example, got the seat after he was subpoenaed, but before he testified. In other words, what ProPublica has basically done with this article is said, Hey, look, here's a lot of people that the feds, the investigators, prosecutors wanted to talk to. And when the Trump people found out they wanted to talk to these people, they threw a lot of money at them. Okay? That is the extent of the allegations that ProPublica has made. And again, they back it up with the court records, the securities filings. They've got all the receipts to prove these numbers. And that's important to the story as well, because Donald Trump's lawyers have now threatened to sue ProPublica.

They have sent a cease and desist letter saying, how dare you make these accusations? If you don't get rid of it, we're going to sue you. And to that, I say, oh God, please do, let's have a lawsuit. Because not only are you going to lose that lawsuit, but then ProPublica gets to turn around and sue you for all of their legal costs, and probably a little bit more than that, you know, to cover some of the other expenses and anguish they had to go through in order to deal with your BS lawsuit. But I don't think a lawsuit ever will be filed in this case again, ProPublica did make, did not make any accusations against Donald Trump. They did not accuse him of witness tampering. They did not even suggest he engaged in witness tampering. They said, Hey, uh, this is weird, and the timing is weird, which is accurate. But ProPublica is not an opinion organization. They're not gonna run press with something that's only half finished. They are, without a

Doubt, the best in the business. So if you think you're gonna catch them on a lie, you think you're gonna catch them making stuff up, then you are delusional because they simply don't do that. But Trump wants the story to go away. Obviously it makes 'em look bad. So I wouldn't be surprised if they filed a lawsuit, and I also wouldn't be surprised if after that lawsuit fails, they get hit with one for a couple million dollars to make up for what they did to this very credible journalist organization.