Former President Donald Trump has indicated he might sue the author and publisher of a forthcoming book that accuses him of committing financial crimes, Publishers Weekly reports.
Joseph Tacopina, a lawyer for Trump, sent a letter to author Mark Pomerantz threatening to sue him and publisher Simon & Schuster over Pomerantz’s People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account, which is scheduled for publication on Feb. 7.
Pomerantz was hired as a special assistant district attorney in 2021 by then-Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. to assist in a criminal investigation into Trump and his group of businesses. He resigned a year later, saying he was frustrated that the new Manhattan D.A., Alvin Bragg, did not plan to indict Trump.
Simon & Schuster describes Pomerantz’s book as “a cautionary tale that illuminates the challenges of prosecuting Donald Trump, why Trump manages to dance between the raindrops of accountability, and how others might bring him to justice.”
In a letter to Pomerantz, Tacopina wrote, “I strongly admonish you to take these next words seriously: If you publish such a book and continue making defamatory statements against my client, my office will aggressively pursue all legal remedies against you and your book publisher, Simon & Schuster. Trust me, I will zealously use every possible legal resource to punish you and your publisher for the incredible financial harm that you have caused my clients to suffer.”
The letter ends with “Consider yourself sufficiently warned.”
Pomerantz indicated that he doesn’t plan to cave into Tacopina’s demands, saying in a statement, “If the former president should sue me, I will defend that litigation. I stand by the statements I have made previously, and those contained in my forthcoming book.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
