On the other side of Donald Trump’s turbulent presidency, the lawyers are waiting.
Leaving aside his Senate impeachment trial, mounting government investigations include a civil probe by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a criminal probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., and a federal probe by acting U.S. Attorney for D.C. Michael Sherwin that may include Trump’s role in the catastrophic storming of the U.S. Capitol this month.
But already pending for the soon-to-be South Florida retiree is a trio of lawsuits that allege defamation, fraud and more fraud — all of which are helmed by one attorney.
Roberta Kaplan’s clients include writer E. Jean Carroll, who filed a defamation case after Trump claimed she was “totally lying” about her allegation that he raped her a quarter-century ago in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room, and niece Mary L. Trump, who claims that Trump and two of his siblings deprived her of an inheritance worth millions.
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“I became the go-to person to sue the president,” says Kaplan, 54, with considerable relish.
She is in many ways the ideal legal adversary to take on Trump. Kaplan is a brash and original strategist, with neither a gift for patience nor silence, a crusader for underdogs who has won almost every legal accolade imaginable. Kaplan, says New York Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in an email, “has been indispensable in the fight against the cancer of hate and division that Trump spent four years exacerbating.”
Before the presidency, Trump was often as engaged in legal tussles as he was in real estate, suing and threatening to sue his way out of financial trouble. With a return to private life, “his terror is that he will no longer be protected by the office and will have to deal with these lawsuits,” says his niece. Trump faces the prospect of spending considerable time in the role of defendant. Kaplan says she will seek to depose him in all three cases. Trump’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment on the cases in this story.
Legal fights await Trump after he leaves the White House
The Post’s Shayna Jacobs explains how state and local investigations of President Trump are expanding to his tax write-offs. (The Washington Post)
For much of her career, there was little in Kaplan’s professional bio to suggest she would become an attorney suing behemoths. Kaplan, known to all as Robbie, is a self-described “traditionalist,” in pearls, pumps and, pre-coronavirus, superior blond highlights, who long worked as a top commercial litigator at Paul, Weiss, one of the nation’s preeminent firms, where the fees tend to be if-you-have-to-ask-you-surely-can’t-afford-us.
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But she became increasingly identified as an advocate for liberal causes and outside-the-box legal strategies. She is a lesbian, an observant Jew and a die-hard Democrat for whom 12 hours constitutes a light work day.
“My maternal grandmother always hated a bully,” Kaplan says during a series of phone interviews. “One really good job for going after bullies is to be a lawyer.”
Since launching her own firm four years ago, Kaplan has initiated a constellation of cases against powerful, often intimidating forces: white supremacists, major Hollywood players, the president of the United States. Legal writer Dahlia Lithwick calls her “an attorney general for the resistance.”
Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan says of their frequent legal conversations: “Robbie’s not calling about feelings. She wants to fix it first. She’s the least diffident person I’ve ever met. Plenty of smart people worry about failing. They worry about every little thing. Robbie doesn’t worry about that. In a really disarming way, she doesn’t care if people view her as hyperaggressive.”
Kaplan speaks after arguing the Edie Windsor case before the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2013. The court ruled in favor of Windsor, seen in a pink scarf, and struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
In Kaplan’s third Trump case, she represents participants in ACN, a multilevel marketing company promoted on “The Celebrity Apprentice.” They’re suing not ACN, but the former host and his three oldest children, accusing them of endorsing the company as a promising business opportunity.
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While Trump billed himself as a populist, Kaplan perceived a consistent disconnect in how Trump University and other enterprises allegedly took advantage of the very people whose interests he claimed to champion.
“Because of his prominence, he marketed his ability to convince unsophisticated, very poor Americans to invest,” says Kaplan, who was indignant that Trump “would exploit people like this to line your own pockets.”
(In a Business Insider story, a Trump organization spokesperson responded to the suit by saying, “Before enrolling with ACN, every participant acknowledged in writing that they are ‘not guaranteed any income.’ ” In that story, ACN co-founder Robert Stevanovski claimed the plaintiffs were told that Trump was getting paid to endorse the company. “I think it’s politically motivated that they’re going to sue him and the family and not us,” he said.)
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Kaplan remains most celebrated for the Edie Windsor case that, in 2013, successfully struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, paving the way with stunning alacrity for the legalization of same-sex marriage two years later to the day.
Among Kaplan’s strategic moves — “I don’t know where I found the chutzpah to do this” — was to help coax Bill Clinton to publish a Washington Post opinion piece renouncing his 1996 support of DOMA before she appeared before the nation’s highest court. United States v. Windsor remains the only U.S. Supreme Court case that she has ever argued.
Roberta Kaplan at her 1988 college graduation from Harvard University. (Family photo)
“A little girl with a big mouth.” That’s how Kaplan’s grandmother described her, meant with affection. Growing up in Cleveland, she was a rigorous student who designed a plan. Head East to a top school (Harvard), train as a lawyer (Columbia), become a New Yorker.
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Five years ago, that plan expanded to landing a top Justice Department position in Hillary Clinton’s administration.
So, no.
Instead, in the summer of 2017, Kaplan launched her own boutique firm, still a rarity among female corporate lawyers, creating an unusual model that combines lucrative commercial litigation with a progressive public-interest practice. Free from the agendas of risk-averse institutional clients, Kaplan and her colleagues became free to take on any case they believed had merit.
One week after the firm moved into its 71st-floor offices of the Empire State Building, the furniture yet to arrive, Charlottesville erupted.
Believing that Trump’s Justice Department seemed unlikely to seriously investigate and prosecute the people responsible for the violence during the “Unite the Right” rally — he infamously claimed there “were very fine people, on both sides” — Kaplan announced, and this was her precise language to friends and colleagues: “I want to sue Nazis.”
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Because, why not?
More at https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...8890f2-50f8-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html
Leaving aside his Senate impeachment trial, mounting government investigations include a civil probe by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a criminal probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., and a federal probe by acting U.S. Attorney for D.C. Michael Sherwin that may include Trump’s role in the catastrophic storming of the U.S. Capitol this month.
But already pending for the soon-to-be South Florida retiree is a trio of lawsuits that allege defamation, fraud and more fraud — all of which are helmed by one attorney.
Roberta Kaplan’s clients include writer E. Jean Carroll, who filed a defamation case after Trump claimed she was “totally lying” about her allegation that he raped her a quarter-century ago in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room, and niece Mary L. Trump, who claims that Trump and two of his siblings deprived her of an inheritance worth millions.
AD
“I became the go-to person to sue the president,” says Kaplan, 54, with considerable relish.
She is in many ways the ideal legal adversary to take on Trump. Kaplan is a brash and original strategist, with neither a gift for patience nor silence, a crusader for underdogs who has won almost every legal accolade imaginable. Kaplan, says New York Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in an email, “has been indispensable in the fight against the cancer of hate and division that Trump spent four years exacerbating.”
Before the presidency, Trump was often as engaged in legal tussles as he was in real estate, suing and threatening to sue his way out of financial trouble. With a return to private life, “his terror is that he will no longer be protected by the office and will have to deal with these lawsuits,” says his niece. Trump faces the prospect of spending considerable time in the role of defendant. Kaplan says she will seek to depose him in all three cases. Trump’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment on the cases in this story.
Legal fights await Trump after he leaves the White House
The Post’s Shayna Jacobs explains how state and local investigations of President Trump are expanding to his tax write-offs. (The Washington Post)
For much of her career, there was little in Kaplan’s professional bio to suggest she would become an attorney suing behemoths. Kaplan, known to all as Robbie, is a self-described “traditionalist,” in pearls, pumps and, pre-coronavirus, superior blond highlights, who long worked as a top commercial litigator at Paul, Weiss, one of the nation’s preeminent firms, where the fees tend to be if-you-have-to-ask-you-surely-can’t-afford-us.
AD
But she became increasingly identified as an advocate for liberal causes and outside-the-box legal strategies. She is a lesbian, an observant Jew and a die-hard Democrat for whom 12 hours constitutes a light work day.
“My maternal grandmother always hated a bully,” Kaplan says during a series of phone interviews. “One really good job for going after bullies is to be a lawyer.”
Since launching her own firm four years ago, Kaplan has initiated a constellation of cases against powerful, often intimidating forces: white supremacists, major Hollywood players, the president of the United States. Legal writer Dahlia Lithwick calls her “an attorney general for the resistance.”
Stanford University law professor Pamela Karlan says of their frequent legal conversations: “Robbie’s not calling about feelings. She wants to fix it first. She’s the least diffident person I’ve ever met. Plenty of smart people worry about failing. They worry about every little thing. Robbie doesn’t worry about that. In a really disarming way, she doesn’t care if people view her as hyperaggressive.”
Kaplan speaks after arguing the Edie Windsor case before the U.S. Supreme Court in March 2013. The court ruled in favor of Windsor, seen in a pink scarf, and struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
In Kaplan’s third Trump case, she represents participants in ACN, a multilevel marketing company promoted on “The Celebrity Apprentice.” They’re suing not ACN, but the former host and his three oldest children, accusing them of endorsing the company as a promising business opportunity.
AD
While Trump billed himself as a populist, Kaplan perceived a consistent disconnect in how Trump University and other enterprises allegedly took advantage of the very people whose interests he claimed to champion.
“Because of his prominence, he marketed his ability to convince unsophisticated, very poor Americans to invest,” says Kaplan, who was indignant that Trump “would exploit people like this to line your own pockets.”
(In a Business Insider story, a Trump organization spokesperson responded to the suit by saying, “Before enrolling with ACN, every participant acknowledged in writing that they are ‘not guaranteed any income.’ ” In that story, ACN co-founder Robert Stevanovski claimed the plaintiffs were told that Trump was getting paid to endorse the company. “I think it’s politically motivated that they’re going to sue him and the family and not us,” he said.)
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Kaplan remains most celebrated for the Edie Windsor case that, in 2013, successfully struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, paving the way with stunning alacrity for the legalization of same-sex marriage two years later to the day.
Among Kaplan’s strategic moves — “I don’t know where I found the chutzpah to do this” — was to help coax Bill Clinton to publish a Washington Post opinion piece renouncing his 1996 support of DOMA before she appeared before the nation’s highest court. United States v. Windsor remains the only U.S. Supreme Court case that she has ever argued.
Roberta Kaplan at her 1988 college graduation from Harvard University. (Family photo)
“A little girl with a big mouth.” That’s how Kaplan’s grandmother described her, meant with affection. Growing up in Cleveland, she was a rigorous student who designed a plan. Head East to a top school (Harvard), train as a lawyer (Columbia), become a New Yorker.
AD
Five years ago, that plan expanded to landing a top Justice Department position in Hillary Clinton’s administration.
So, no.
Instead, in the summer of 2017, Kaplan launched her own boutique firm, still a rarity among female corporate lawyers, creating an unusual model that combines lucrative commercial litigation with a progressive public-interest practice. Free from the agendas of risk-averse institutional clients, Kaplan and her colleagues became free to take on any case they believed had merit.
One week after the firm moved into its 71st-floor offices of the Empire State Building, the furniture yet to arrive, Charlottesville erupted.
Believing that Trump’s Justice Department seemed unlikely to seriously investigate and prosecute the people responsible for the violence during the “Unite the Right” rally — he infamously claimed there “were very fine people, on both sides” — Kaplan announced, and this was her precise language to friends and colleagues: “I want to sue Nazis.”
AD
Because, why not?
More at https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...8890f2-50f8-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html
