美国国家公共电台 NPR Trump Has Faced Many Lawsuits. Will Litigation Influence His Presidency?（在线收听）

Trump Has Faced Many Lawsuits. Will Litigation Influence His Presidency?

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President-elect Donald Trump on Friday agreed to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits claiming that his real estate seminar known as Trump University cheated thousands of customers. Trump says he doesn't have time to deal with the suits now that he's headed to the White House. But he faces numerous other suits that could distract from his work as president. Here's NPR's Jim Zarroli.

JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Over the past three decades, Donald Trump has been involved in a lot of lawsuits. USA Today found that he's been named as a plaintiff or defendant in more than 4,000 suits. Stephen Gillers is a professor at NYU Law School.

STEPHEN GILLERS: The number of lawsuits that may now be in existence I think are way ahead of anything we might ever again expect of any president of the United States.

ZARROLI: There are suits over branding, contract disputes and tax issues. He's sued journalists, political groups and a former Miss Pennsylvania. Bill Maher offered $5 million to anyone who could prove Trump's father wasn't an orangutan.

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BILL MAHER: The color of his hair...

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

MAHER: ...And color of an orange orangutan is the only two things in nature of the same color.

ZARROLI: Trump submitted his birth certificate and then sued Maher, demanding the $5 million. He later dropped the suit. University of Virginia law professor Saikrishna Prakash has proposed that Congress pass a law delaying lawsuits while a president is in office.

SAIKRISHNA PRAKASH: The problem that we face with Mr. Trump is that he has got so many lawsuits that he could very well be distracted from taking care of the nation's business by a concern with his personal finances.

ZARROLI: But as Prakash acknowledges, there's a problem.

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FORMER PRES BILL CLINTON: If is means is and never has been, that is not - that's one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.

ZARROLI: During his presidency, Bill Clinton had to deal with a sexual harassment lawsuit by Paula Jones. His lawyers argued that the suit would distract him from his work as president. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the case could go forward, which ultimately led to Clinton's impeachment.

PRAKASH: The court predicted it wouldn't really disrupt the president or take too much of his time. And I suppose that was possible in that case, but they turned out to be totally wrong.

ZARROLI: Prakash says there's a precedent for delaying suits. A law allows members of the armed forces to be protected temporarily against many civil suits. The Trump Organization declined to comment about that idea, but Stephen Gillers says delaying a suit against a president would be wrong.

GILLERS: If a plaintiff is suing Trump, he or she has a right to a day in court. And making that person wait four years or three years or two years for relief is simply unacceptable.

ZARROLI: Gillers notes that the Supreme Court in the Paula Jones case allowed presidents to delay suits for short periods, to take foreign trips, for example. And they aren't required to testify in court, which takes time. They can do so through depositions. So Gillers says presidents can usually make time to deal with suits.

GILLERS: Yes, it's a distraction, but the president, although president 24 hours a day, seven days a week, does do other things. He does have a private life. And so he simply has to factor this in to his private life.

ZARROLI: Gillers does point out that the Paula Jones ruling applied only to federal courts. Though they probably won't, state courts can make life a lot more difficult for a president. But as with so much about the Trump presidency, the outcome is unpredictable. And Americans could one day see their president testifying in a court trial. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.