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      Trump pardons debase the presidency further – and he can and will go lower | Lloyd Green

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      With hours to spare before Christmas, Donald Trump has delivered pardons to Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Charlie Kushner, a passel of war criminals and a bent congressman or two. There is no reason to believe our “law and order” president’s pardon binge is over. Too many people in his immediate orbit remain exposed to future prosecution, including the president himself.Come noon on 20 January 2021, Trump and his inner circle will be private citizens again. Devoid of legal immunity, stripped of the air of invincibility, they become fair game for federal and local law enforcement alike. The potential for prison hovers over them like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.Cyrus Vance, Manhattan’s district attorney, is circling Trump and his business. Eric Trump has testified at a court-ordered deposition conducted by New York’s attorney general. As for federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York, they labeled Trump an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of Michael Cohen. The statute of limitations has not expired.And then there is Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. According to reports, he remains on the radar of federal law enforcement in connection with possible election law violations, and doesn’t like it one bit. On Wednesday Giuliani lashed out, calling investigators “secret police” and accusing them of toadying to Joe Biden, the president-elect. Trump has gone so far as to unequivocally claim authority to pardon himself, something Nixon refused to doIn case anyone needs reminding, once upon a time Giuliani was the No3 lawyer at the justice department and US attorney for the southern district. Back then, he was viewed as one of the good guys. As it happens, he prosecuted Marc Rich, the recipient of an infamous pardon from Bill Clinton. But as the Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson repeatedly remarks, everything Trump touches dies.The list doesn’t end with Rudy. The justice department and the Federal Election Commission may soon want to talk to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, about his role in the Trump re-election campaign.Reportedly, Kushner was a driving force in establishing a shell company, American Made Media Consultants, which made shrouded payments to Trump family members and friends. Indeed, Kushner purportedly directed Lara Trump, the wife of Eric Trump, John Pence, the vice-president’s nephew, and the campaign’s chief financial officer to serve on the shell company board.Think of it as the Trump Organization 2.0. Or the deep campaign.In the end, AMMC spent nearly half of the campaign’s war chest, with payments going to Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr’s girlfriend, and Lara Trump, who is now contemplating a Senate run in North Carolina. Suffice to say, the legality of this opaque arrangement is unclear.Three House Democrats have requested investigations by the Department of Justice and the FEC. Without a pardon, Jared’s fate will rest in the hands of a Biden DoJ. Said differently, Hunter Biden is not the only person with a troubled road ahead.The constitution confers the pardon power upon the president, and the circumstances of its use speak volumes about the occupant of the Oval Office. Whether a president may pardon himself has yet to be legally tested.Richard Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment by the House and almost certain conviction in the Senate. In August 1974, he left office without pardoning himself or those convicted in the Watergate scandal. Instead, Gerald Ford issued a pardon to his former boss.Trump is no Nixon. In so many ways. The 45th president has gone so far as to unequivocally claim authority to pardon himself, something Nixon refused to do.By any measure, Trump has set a new standard for debasing the presidency. As he stares at an ignominious exit, the ex-reality show host has even managed to make Clinton’s pardon of Rich look quaint. And that takes effort.Yet unlike the Clinton pardon of Rich, a fugitive financier, which sparked a review by James Comey and a barrage of Republican condemnation, among the GOP in Congress Trump’s pardons have elicited little more than a yawn. With the exception of Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who called the pardons “rotten to the core”, they have been met with a collective shrug. None of this should come as a surprise. Trump has recreated the GOP in his image. Republicans know he commands the party’s base, and they stand one primary away from oblivion. In the end, what’s a pardon between friends? More

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      Donald Trump's latest wave of pardons includes Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner

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      Donald Trump has pardoned another 26 people in his second big wave of clemency actions since Tuesday, marking yet another audacious application of presidential power to reward loyalists.The US president pardoned his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, his longtime adviser Roger Stone, and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.Stone, a longtime friend and associate, had his sentence for a series of charges related to the Russia investigation commuted by the president in July.In total, Trump pardoned or issued commutations to 29 people on Wednesday, including Margaret Hunter, the wife of Duncan Hunter, the former Republican representative of California, who was pardoned yesterday.Trump’s latest set of pre-Christmas pardons follows a brazen round of pardons and commutations granted on Tuesday. The president issued 15 pardons and five commutations to allies, including two figures who plead guilty in special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry on Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.On Tuesday, the president pardoned George Papadopoulos, a former adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to federal officials during the Russia investigation, and Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer and son-in-law of the Russian billionaire German Khan. Van der Zwaan had pleaded guilty to similar charges.Papadopoulos and Van der Zwaan were the third and fourth people pardoned for charges in connection to the Russia inquiry. In November, Trump pardoned his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with a Russian official. The president, who has long derided the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election as a “hoax”, has been expected to dole out pardons to those implicated in the inquiry.Tuesday’s rash of pardons was also bestowed upon four former Blackwater contractors who were convicted on charges related to a 2007 massacre in Iraq. The four men, part of a security convoy, fired indiscriminately at civilians, killing 14 people – including a nine-year-old child. The move drew harsh criticism, including from the families of those who were killed. Adil al-Khazali, whose father Ali was killed in the attack, said in response: “Justice doesn’t exist.”Under the US constitution, the president has broad, unilateral pardon powers, but pardons are traditionally reviewed by the justice department. Many of Trump’s pardons, however, seem to clash with department standards – and are instead bestowed as a means to reward allies or act on grudges. Only five of 65 pardons and commutations Trump issued before Wednesday were recommended by the justice department pardon attorney, according to a tally by the Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith.Manafort, 71, was sentenced for convictions including unregistered lobbying, tax fraud, bank fraud and money laundering. Stone, 68, was convicted of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. “Mr President, my family & I humbly thank you for the Presidential Pardon you bestowed on me. Words cannot fully convey how grateful we are,” Manafort tweeted on Wednesday night.A presidential pardon does not shield someone from state charges, and the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, is still looking to prosecute Manafort for state crimes. Trump’s pardon “underscores the urgent need to hold Mr Manafort accountable for his crimes against the People of New York as alleged in our indictment, and we will continue to pursue our appellate remedies”, Danny Frost, a spokesman for Vance, told CNBC. A judge had previously blocked Vance from advancing his case, to protect Manafort from being prosecuted twice for the same crimes.A Trump lawyer reportedly offered pardons to Manafort and Flynn as they were approached by federal investigators – raising suspicions that the pardons were proffered in exchange for loyalty to Trump. The New York Times first reported the news in 2018. In his report following the investigation, Mueller wrote: “Many of the president’s acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, occurred in public view.”Adam Schiff, the Democratic representative of California who prosecuted the impeachment trial of Trump, said: “During the Mueller investigation, Trump’s lawyer floated a pardon to Manafort. Manafort withdrew his cooperation with prosecutors, lied, was convicted, and then Trump praised him for not ‘ratting’. Trump’s pardon now completes the corrupt scheme.”“Lawless until the bitter end,” Schiff tweeted.The congressman also noted that many serving time in federal prisons had been convicted of non-violent crimes and deserved a reprieve. “But who does Trump pardon? Those who lie, cheat or steal for him and his family,” Schiff said.Charles Kushner, 66, pleaded guilty to tax evasion and lying to the Federal Election Commission. He also pleaded guilty to witness tampering, after he retaliated against his brother-in-law William Schulder, who was cooperating with federal investigators. Kushner was accused of hiring a sex worker to seduce Schulder, videotaping the encounter and sending the tape to Schulder’s wife – Kushner’s sister.Another twist: Kushner was prosecuted by Chris Christie, a former US attorney and New Jersey governor who has been a Trump loyalist.The executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, said: “In pardoning Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Charles Kushner, President Trump has made it clear that he believes the purpose of the pardon is to bail out rich white men connected to him. Trump has turned an instrument of mercy and justice into just another way for him to be corrupt.”Ben Sasse, a Republican senator of Nebraska, issued a more succinct statement in reaction to the pardons: “This is rotten to the core.”It is unclear whether the president will issue more pardons, which the White House has discussed handing out “like Christmas gifts”, Axios has reported. The White House, which daily shares the president’s public schedule with media, said that on Christmas Eve Trump will be in Florida and “as the Holiday season approaches, President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls.” More

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      The Guardian view on US presidential pardons: go no further | Editorial

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      A US president’s power to pardon and commute sentences for federal offences seems to explode America’s claims as a nation of laws and proper process. Donald Trump is no respecter of laws in any aspect of his life, so there is no surprise that he may now be gearing up to make extravagant use of the power before he is prised out of the White House in January.Two things should be remembered here. First, the pardon power does not extend to state laws, only federal ones. Second, other presidents have been here too. Barack Obama, who issued 212 pardons in eight years, granted 330 commutations on his very last day as president in 2017. At this stage of his own presidency, Mr Trump is a remarkably light pardoner and commuter. At the time of writing, he has issued a mere 28 pardons and 16 commutations, although all that could change soon.One explanation, and a difference between Mr Trump and his predecessors, is that a high proportion of his acts of clemency have directly involved his own allies and staff. The latest of these included commutation for his friend Roger Stone, and a pardon for his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, both of whom were convicted of obstructing the Robert Mueller investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign.As the end nears, Mr Trump may be planning to break new ground in other ways. He has sometimes mused that he can pardon himself, something no president has ever done and which many lawyers think is unconstitutional. But he is widely reported to be eyeing “pre-emptive” pardons to his children, Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka, as well as to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani. This week, it has been confirmed that the justice department is investigating an alleged “bribery for pardon” scheme at the White House. Any of these actions, never mind all three, would plumb new depths in Mr Trump’s four-year abuse of the presidency.Shocking though such possibilities are, there is an established legal argument for pardons. In this country, a royal pardon was issued in 2013 to the scientist Alan Turing, who took his own life after being convicted under anti-homosexuality laws in 1952. This leads to a wider moral point. “Pardon’s the word to all,” pronounces Cymbeline in the final scene of Shakespeare’s late play. The former archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has described Cymbeline’s line as a moral clarion call. The ability to pardon a person helps to elevate human beings, the archbishop argued. The human capacity for compassion and reconciliation is, he has said, evidence of the hand of the divine.There is, though, nothing remotely divine or compassionate about Mr Trump. The legal power he wields should be used very sparingly, and only in line with a proper and transparent process. Mr Trump has no interest in such things. He may not be able to put himself beyond the law, but he can do massive damage along the way. That would indeed be unpardonable. More

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      Kushner heading to Saudi Arabia and Qatar amid tensions over Iranian scientist killing

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      White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is headed to Saudi Arabia and Qatar this week for talks in a region simmering with tension after the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist.A senior administration official said on Sunday that Kushner is to meet the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in the Saudi city of Neom, and the emir of Qatar in that country in the coming days. Kushner will be joined by Middle East envoys Avi Berkowitz and Brian Hook and Adam Boehler, chief executive of the US International Development Finance Corporation.Kushner and his team helped negotiate normalization deals between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan since August. The official said they would like to advance more such agreements before Donald Trump hands power to president-elect Joe Biden on 20 January.US officials believe enticing Saudi Arabia into a deal with Israel would prompt other Arab nations to follow suit. But the Saudis do not appear to be on the brink of reaching such a landmark deal and officials in recent weeks have been focusing on other countries, with concern about Iran’s regional influence a uniting factor.Kushner’s trip comes after the killing on Friday of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Tehran by unidentified assailants. Western and Israeli governments believe Fakhrizadeh was the architect of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program.Days before the killing, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, travelled to Saudi Arabia and met with Prince Mohammed, an Israeli official said, in what was the first publicly confirmed visit by an Israeli leader. Israeli media said they were joined by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.The historic meeting underlined how opposition to Tehran is bringing about a strategic realignment of countries in the Middle East. Prince Mohammed and Netanyahu fear Biden will adopt policies on Iran similar to those adopted during Barack Obama’s presidency which strained Washington’s ties with its traditional regional allies. Biden has said he will rejoin the international nuclear pact with Iran that Trump quit in 2018 – and work with allies to strengthen its terms – if Tehran first resumes strict compliance.The senior administration official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, declined to give more details of Kushner’s trip for security reasons.The official said Kushner met at the White House last week with the Kuwaiti foreign minister, Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah. Kuwait is seen as critical in any effort to resolve a three-year rift between Qatar and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council.Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which comprise the GCC, cut diplomatic ties with Qatar in 2017 and imposed a boycott over allegations that Qatar supported terrorism, a charge it denies. More

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      Will New York's elite give Ivanka and Jared a warm welcome or the cold shoulder?

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      In the purgatory of Donald Trump’s unacknowledged election defeat, the knives are out for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump who, like dozens of other lesser-placed Trump acolytes, may be looking to return to New York, a city that the lame-duck president calls an “anarchic jurisdiction”.
      The reception they will receive, judging from the city’s press commentary, could be brutal.
      “They are the Faustian poster couple of the Trump presidency, the king and queen of the principle-torching prom at which so many danced alongside them, although in less exquisitely tailored attire,” wrote Frank Bruni in the New York Times this week.
      Posing a question broadly to what he called “the whole shockingly populous court of collaborators”, Bruno addressed the couple directly: “Tell me, Jared. Be honest, Ivanka. Was it worth it?”
      The answer, of course, is one for the couple alone to answer. But that hasn’t stopped others from offering their thoughts. “I see them as Glenn Close at the end of Dangerous Liaisons, with the entire opera house jeering,” says Jill Kargman, creator and star of Odd Mom Out, a highly praised TV comedy that skewered the Ivanka-style perfectionism of Upper East Side mothers.
      Andrea Bernstein, a WNYC investigative reporter and author of American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power, says it’s not clear that they plan to return to New York, since the Kushner family real estate empire is now focused in the mid-Atlantic states and his wife no longer runs a fashion accessories business.
      Moreover, Bernstein points out, twin New York city and state investigations into Ivanka’s $780,000 in Azerbaijani consulting fees, the on-the-record skewering by former Manhattan friends and increased politicization (she joined the rightwing chat site Parler this week) suggest Democratic New York may not be an optimal place to relocate.
      “I don’t see any indication they are coming back or would be welcome back here,” Bernstein says. “The investigations are a symbol of the problems the family could face back in New York, while the article in Vanity Fair was interesting not for what it said, but that the author said it so publicly.”
      If they do return, they will probably arrive in New York during another period of Covid restrictions. Restaurants are limited to 25% capacity and four per table, the charity and museum gala circuit upon which New York society revolves is on pause, and so opportunities to express the chill of social ostracism may be limited.
      “They’ll have to come back to Republican New York because they won’t be welcomed in liberal quarters,” says New York Times styles writer David Colman.
      “The interesting part is: will organisations that are essentially apolitical, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art – already sitting on pots of money from the Koch brothers – the Frick Collection or the Audubon Society, accept their donation and put them on a table?”
      The Kushners, Colman predicts, will give money to hospitals, medical charities and do something with sick children – “things people can’t get mad at” – and spend time in the Hamptons, the expensive getaway for the rich and powerful. “And she’ll distance herself from her father because he’s going to stay his crazy, fulminating self on Twitter.”
      Top New York hairdresser John Barrett says Ivanka will face no trouble if she chooses to return. “America is all about second acts, and there’s always somebody trying to advance a position or cause. Obviously, some people have been burnt by the administration, but it’ll take very little time for them to buy their way back pretty and rule a certain roost.”
      Not all are so accommodating. One former friend told Vanity Fair’s Emily Jane Fox: “They’ll be welcomed back by people who know the Trumps are as close as they’ll get to power. But everyone with self-respect, a career, morals, respect for democracy, or who doesn’t want their friends to shame them both in private and public will steer clear.” More

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      Who will tell Trump to go? Not Melania or Jared, reports say

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      As Donald Trump spent Sunday morning visiting one of his golf clubs and doubling down on bogus election fraud claims, conflicting reports emerged about whether the president’s family and top advisers were advising him to admit defeat.
      The disparate reports likely reflected a White House in deep turmoil, some officials digesting the scale of their defeat in the presidential election but others, especially Trump himself, cling to a false narrative that the election was somehow stolen.
      Citing two sources, CNN reported that Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, had spoken to him about conceding. Another source told CNN Trump’s wife, Melania, told him that it was time to accept Joe Biden’s victory.
      Melania Trump was then yet to make a public statement on the election but had reportedly voiced her opinion in private.
      “She has offered it, as she often does,” CNN reported this source as saying.
      Later on Sunday she tweeted support for her husband, saying: “The American people deserve fair elections. Every legal – not illegal – vote should be counted.”
      Shortly after noon, the New York Times said a White House official disputed CNN’s reporting on Kushner. This official claimed that Kushner had advised Trump to seek “legal remedies”.
      Axios also reported on Kushner’s counsel. “A second source close to Kushner confirmed he had not advised Trump to concede,” the news site said.
      Any advice would appear to have had little impact on Trump himself, who continued to tweet false and baseless allegations of electoral fraud and had yet to call Biden to concede the race, a longstanding tradition in US politics. There was little sign that the president’s two oldest sons, Eric and Don Jr, were advising him to concede.
      Both the Times and Axios described behind-the-scenes conversations.
      According to the Times, White House advisers and staffers convened on Saturday at Trump campaign headquarters. After campaign officials explained that any legal strategy likely would not change election results, Kushner asked some to explain this to Trump. When they asked Kushner if he should also be part of this conversation, Kushner reportedly said he would participate in subsequent discussions.
      According to Axios, a source claimed there were some uncomfortable conversations in Trump’s circle, and that the majority accepted that Biden had won.
      A spokeswoman for Melania Trump did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
      Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has emphatically pushed for legal intervention. CNN also reported that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who tested positive for Covid-19 this week, had discussed next moves with Trump’s legal team.
      Regardless of Trump’s view of the outcome, there has been no communication between the White House and Biden’s camp.
      Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders told CNN’s State of the Union that while “a number of Republicans from the Hill have reached out … I don’t believe anyone from the White House has.” More

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      Fox draws Trump campaign's ire after calling Arizona for Biden

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      When Donald Trump supporters gathered outside a vote-counting centre in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday night, they had a simple and perhaps unexpected chant: “Fox News Sucks!”
      Although the channel has become synonymous with Trump’s rise to power, in the last two days Fox News has become the focus of the Trump campaign’s anger after it made an early call on Tuesday night that the state of Arizona was going to Joe Biden.
      In the process, the channel switched the media’s attention away from Trump’s substantial success in Florida and undermined the president’s attempts to focus attention on the vote counting in Pennsylvania.
      Such was the level of fury within the Trump campaign at the call that his team reportedly attempted to have the decision overturned. According to the New York Times, this involved Jared Kushner contacting Fox’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, while in Vanity Fair’s reporting it was the president himself who called the media mogul. Regardless of who was placing the calls, Fox has stuck by its decision – much to the anger of many of its viewers who have bombarded the channel with complaints.

      The decision to call the ultra-close Arizona race for Biden – a victory that was later also declared by the Associated Press, which provides results data to the Guardian – was made by Fox’s Arnon Mishkin, who runs the broadcaster’s decision desk. Before the election, Mishkin, a registered Democrat who has worked for Fox News for decades, had made clear that he would not be swayed by internal pressure in making calls for states.
      As a result, Mishkin has been portrayed as a defender of the truth, representing the uneasy balance that exists between Fox’s straight news division and the highly opinionated rightwing hosts who shape the external perception of the channel.
      On Thursday, Mishkin, who has become a target for angry Trump supporters, told the channel’s viewers that he would not be changing his mind on the basis that “we strongly believe that our call will stand, and that’s why we’re not pulling back the call”.
      Dismissing claims from Trump’s team that they could still edge ahead in the ultra-close race as more votes were counted, a visibly exasperated Mishkin pushed back and said the objections were like talking about what would happen “if a frog had wings”.
      “We’re confident that the data will basically look like the data we’ve noticed throughout the count in Arizona,” he said.

      Trump and his team have an increasingly complicated relationship with Fox News. Throughout his presidency he has been an obsessive watcher of the channel, often providing commentary on his Twitter feed about its audience ratings when he objects to its coverage and phoning in to dispute specific issues.
      On the day of the election he complained on air about the channel’s coverage not being sufficiently supportive: “Somebody said what’s the difference between this and four years ago, and I say Fox … In the old days you wouldn’t put ‘Sleepy Joe’ on every time he opens his mouth. You had Democrats on more than you had Republicans. I’m not complaining. I’m just telling people.”
      One of the bigger questions in US rightwing media is what happens if Trump loses the election, with longstanding speculation that he could be tempted to start his own media outlet in a bid to communicate directly with his supporters. More

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      'Sue if you must': Lincoln Project rejects threat over Kushner and Ivanka billboards

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      The Lincoln Project “will not be intimidated by empty bluster”, a lawyer for the group wrote late on Saturday, in response to a threat from an attorney for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner over two billboards put up in Times Square.“Sue if you must,” Matthew Sanderson said.The New York City billboards show the president’s daughter and her husband, both senior White House advisers, displaying apparent indifference to public suffering under Covid-19.Kushner is shown next to the quote “[New Yorkers] are going to suffer and that’s their problem”, above a line of body bags. Trump is shown gesturing, with a smile, to statistics for how many New Yorkers and Americans as a whole have died.According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 8.5m coronavirus cases have been recorded across the US and more than 224,000 have died. Case numbers are at record daily levels and one study has predicted 500,000 deaths by February. New York was hit hard at the pandemic’s outset.The Lincoln Project is a group of former Republican consultants who have made it their mission to attack Donald Trump and support Joe Biden.On Friday, Marc Kasowitz, an attorney who has represented the president against allegations of fraud and sexual assault, wrote to the Lincoln Project, demanding the “false, malicious and defamatory” ads be removed, or “we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages”.The Lincoln Project responded that they would not remove the billboards, citing first amendment rights of free speech and the “reckless mismanagement of Covid-19” by the Trump White House.In a legal response on Saturday night, attorney Matthew Sanderson told Kasowitz: “Please peddle your scare tactics elsewhere. The Lincoln Project will not be intimidated by such empty bluster … your clients are no longer Upper East Side socialites, able to sue at the slightest offense to their personal sensitivities.”Due to a “gross act of nepotism”, Sanderson wrote, citing supreme court precedent and “substantial constitutional protections for those who speak out”, Trump and Kushner have become public officials whom Americans “have the right to discuss and criticise freely”.Kasowitz claimed Kushner “never said” the words attributed to him on the billboards, and Trump “never made the gesture” she is shown to make.Vanity Fair reported the Kushner quote, from a meeting in March, in which Kushner criticised New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Trump tweeted the pose used by the Lincoln Project in July, controversially promoting Goya foods.The “bruised self-image” of the president’s daughter, Sanderson wrote, “does not change the fact that this billboard accurately depicts her support of a federal response that has utterly failed to prevent an unmitigated tragedy for the United States”.“May I suggest,” he added, “that if Mr Kushner and Ms Trump are genuinely concerned about salvaging their reputations, they would do well to stop suppressing truthful criticism and instead turn their attention to the Covid-19 crisis that is still unfolding under their inept watch.“These billboards are not causing [their] standing with the public to plummet. Their incompetence is.”A footnote to Sanderson’s letter cited “one of the seminal libel-proof plaintiff cases”, that of a well-known mobster whose reputation was “so tarnished … he could claim no damages for defamation”.“Mr Kushner and Ms Trump’s claims will fare no better than Boobie Cerasini’s given their tarnished reputations on Covid-19,” it said.Sanderson also said “this isn’t over” and added: “Sue if you must.”As University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told the Guardian on Saturday, that seems unlikely.Donald Trump “has honed litigation abuse, as a business person and president, to an art form,” Tobias said. But “if they did sue, the litigation might take years to resolve, be expensive and lead to embarrassing revelations … suits like this by people who have thrust themselves into the public eye are notoriously difficult to win.“In short, this appears to be the usual Trump family bluster.” More