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- Donald Trump wants cash sanctions for the disclosure of his fear of flying fruits.
- His lawyer says the fruit phobia was publicized in a plot to “weaponize the media” against Trump.
- The lawyer cites texts between Michael Cohen and a Daily Beast reporter as evidence of the plot.
Former President Donald Trump is demanding cash sanctions over what his lawyer is calling the malicious disclosure of the former president’s fear of fruit being thrown at him.
Trump’s stated concern that “pineapples, tomatoes, bananas, stuff like that” could be thrown at him at protests had been revealed in April, as part of his sworn deposition in a Bronx civil lawsuit.
Fruit-laden excerpts from that deposition should never have been made public, Trump lawyer Alina Habba complained last month.
But in papers filed on Friday, Habba upped the ante, demanding cash sanctions to “punish” the “bad-faith conduct.”
The decision to publicly file the “highly prejudicial” deposition transcript “was unquestionably undertaken to harass or maliciously injure” Trump, Habba wrote in Friday’s filing.
The target of Habba’s anger is the lawyers on the other side of an ongoing lawsuit that accuses Trump of siccing his security guards on protesters who held “Make America Racist Again” posters outside Manhattan’s Trump Tower in 2015.
The case goes on trial this summer; a new, July 18 date has been agreed to for jury selection.
In demanding cash sanctions Friday, Habba cited a December text exchange between Daily Beast reporter Lachlan Cartwright and Trump fixer-turned-critic Michael Cohen as an example of the other side’s “ongoing effort to weaponize the media” against Trump.
In the brief exchange, the reporter asks Cohen to reach out to protester attorney Benjamin Dictor, and Cohen agrees.
It’s not clear how the exchange shows Dictor “weaponizing” the Daily Beast, beyond showing that the lawyer and reporter knew each other — and that the lawyer sought the reporter’s help in reaching Cohen.
Cohen is a star witness against Trump in the case and has given a sworn deposition saying that he watched as his then-boss directly ordered Trump Tower security to “get rid of” the protesters.
Dictor has said in court filings that he only learned recently that Cohen was there at Trump Tower that day.
The revelation was “a completely random thing” when it happened, New Republic staff writer Alex Shepard told Insider on Friday.
It was November, and he was having dinner in Brooklyn with Dictor and Cartwright when Cohen called Cartwright’s cellphone, Shepard said.
Cartwright told Cohen he happened to be sitting with “the lawyer who just deposed your ex-boss,” meaning Trump, Shepard said.
Cohen and Dictor then had a brief exchange on The Daily Beast reporter’s cell phone, at which point Cohen revealed what he knew about Trump’s involvement in the protest.
The December text exchange was Dictor’s attempt to reach out again to Cohen, Shepard said.
“It was kind of just a lark” that Dictor and Cohen happened to speak in the first place, he said.
Cohen and Dictor did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dictor, too, has filed for sanctions against Habba for saying he acted in bad faith in releasing the transcript. Oral arguments in the fruit fracas have been scheduled for June 22.
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