DEMS/INVESTIGATIONS/LEGAL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP BUSINESS: “In 1973, when Donald J. Trump’s real estate firm faced a potentially existential threat from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s accusations of discriminatory practices, his lawyer, Roy Cohn, filed a countersuit against the government, accusing the agency of defamation. The gambit, announced at a news conference, helped Mr. Trump, then 27, slow down the HUD legal action, buy time and eventually claim a victory when, two years later, he signed a consent agreement with no admission of guilt. The president has used that approach ever since, suing governments, banks, former employees and former business partners — even when there appeared to be no grounds — if he thought it would give him some tactical advantage. Now, as the Democrat-controlled House tries to pry open the financial records of Mr. Trump and his businesses, lawmakers are finding themselves up against the same familiar tactics, along with a bevy of other actions from the Trump administration meant to halt their work. They are struggling to figure out how to respond to a president who refuses to recognize the norms of his office — or, they argue, the institutional authority of a coequal branch of government.”
–Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Fandos, “In Combating Democratic Investigations, Trump Borrows From an Old Playbook,” The New York Times online, May 1, 2019