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Trump v. Selzer
Dec. 22nd, 2024 08:37 pmTrump has filed a lawsuit against a pollster, J. Ann Selzer, using Iowa’s consumer fraud law, for erroneously predicting that Kamala Harris would win in Iowa. I doubt that the (Heaven help us) president-elect’s mouthpieces seriously expect to win the suit (I don’t know what Trump himself expects), but the purpose here is probably less to win than to intimidate other journalists, newspapers, websites, and so forth from publishing anything that may offend the new jefe.
Ms. Seltzer did not knowingly sell glass beads as genuine rubies and emeralds, and did not take a job with the Trump campaign, and then knowingly provide false information, so consumer fraud law would not seem to this non-lawyer to apply, even leaving out the First Amendment issues. She reported on how she thought Iowa was likely to vote, based on her polling, and, as has happened before, the actual election results were not what was expected. Harry Truman posed holding a newspaper with the erroneous headline “Dewey Beats Truman,” but did not, so far as I am aware, sue the newspaper. Harry Truman, whatever his shortcomings, was not a pathological narcissist and an enemy of constitutional government.
I could almost wish for Trump to win the lawsuit in order to see him held liable under the new, expanded interpretation of consumer fraud. It would be delightful to watch people successfully suing him for saying, “Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” or promising to bring prices back down, or saying that he would replace Obamacare with something new, “and it’s going to be wonderful,” or announcing that he would end the war in Ukraine in one day.
But I don’t really wish for that. Instead, I hope to see the President of the United States declared a vexatious litigant, and forbidden to file any more lawsuits without special permission.
Ms. Seltzer did not knowingly sell glass beads as genuine rubies and emeralds, and did not take a job with the Trump campaign, and then knowingly provide false information, so consumer fraud law would not seem to this non-lawyer to apply, even leaving out the First Amendment issues. She reported on how she thought Iowa was likely to vote, based on her polling, and, as has happened before, the actual election results were not what was expected. Harry Truman posed holding a newspaper with the erroneous headline “Dewey Beats Truman,” but did not, so far as I am aware, sue the newspaper. Harry Truman, whatever his shortcomings, was not a pathological narcissist and an enemy of constitutional government.
I could almost wish for Trump to win the lawsuit in order to see him held liable under the new, expanded interpretation of consumer fraud. It would be delightful to watch people successfully suing him for saying, “Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” or promising to bring prices back down, or saying that he would replace Obamacare with something new, “and it’s going to be wonderful,” or announcing that he would end the war in Ukraine in one day.
But I don’t really wish for that. Instead, I hope to see the President of the United States declared a vexatious litigant, and forbidden to file any more lawsuits without special permission.
