Litigation

A few days ago I was on my afternoon walk and it just bubbled up in my mind.  The light bulb went on.  I don't want to call it an epiphany, but a clearness occurred.

We all know that trump is going to do whatever he darn well pleases.  We already know this.  But how, that's the question, how is going to do it?  It came clear to me, the same way he has done it all along.  trump has always depended on litigation.  Certainly he has brought many law suits to the courts, but he also does whatever he wants and throws down a dare to those that he screws over.  It's this latter behavior that is the concern.  There are many instances where trump has failed to pay contractors or providers of goods and services.  In order to collect, the onus is on the harmed party to be the complainant.  In order to collect, the person, persons or company bringing the suit bear the burden of proof.  trump supposedly has deep pockets and therefore pays his lawyers to use any and every technicality to prolong the litigation.  This in turn forces the complainant to spend more money to have his, her, or their lawyer(s) respond.  The obvious result is that in most cases the party suing trump drops the suit.

So, trump is going to do what he wants and is going to dare the Congress or private citizens to litigate.  And the real problem is that he is going to repeat this behavior on a large scale, thereby overwhelming those that would attempt to use the courts to stop him.  He will have his administration commit illegal actions (questionable actions at the very least).  He will count on the shear quantity of these actions being enough to ward off legal actions against him.

If trump behaves in this way, what can we do about it?  I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know.  One thing  does come to mind.  In the same way that politicians are now starting to raise money, we the people will need to operate under a single banner and all chip in, on line, to create a legal fund that will enable us to purchase lawyers.  With those funds, we could then contribute to the ACLU so that they could carry the fight(s) forward into the courts.  The ACLU has a great deal of experience, when it comes to Constitutional litigation.  I now believe that they will be our best option, as private citizens, for working to minimize the damage that trump may cause.

The Congress is supposed to be our 'firewall' to place a check on the Administrative branch, but we are now faced with such a high level of partisan polarization that I do not trust a Republican dominated Congress to do its job.  trump is counting on that and is working with his tweets to keep the wedge firmly planted.  Since we cannot count on Congress to keep trump in check, then we will need to develop a alternate  path as well.  We will need to press down many paths at the same time.  We still need to keep pressure on Congress to impeach trump, but we must make sure that we have one collective pocket and that it is a deep pocket.  We will also need to litigate.