Trump's Harvard move reflects one of his go-to tactics: Lawsuits

ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump has played many roles. Real estate developer. Marketing extraordinaire. Reality TV host. Candidate. President — twice.

Another part has been constant through all of them: plaintiff.

Trump both threatens lawsuits and files them with aplomb — against individuals, institutions, even the people who elected him. Sometimes the threats are just that, and no lawsuit materializes. And, certainly, Trump has found himself on the receiving end of many lawsuits and legal challenges. But his own litigious bent goes back decades, and it has continued during his time in the White House.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks once described Trump as “the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process.” Trump, Middlebrooks declared in a short-lived 2022-23 Trump case against Hillary Clinton, is a “sophisticated litigant … repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge.”

The president has his latest potential targets. His Justice Department is suing Harvard University, not long after Trump took issue with a New York Times story about his fight with the school, and he recently threatened comedian Trevor Noah, who connected Trump to Jeffrey Epstein during the Grammy Awards show.

“Get ready Noah, I’m going to have some fun with you!” Trump blasted on Truth Social.

Here are some highlights of Trump's torts and threats.

Trump started in his father's Queens-based real estate business. They attracted attention from state and federal government authorities in the early 1970s after prospective Black tenants complained of being denied apartments.

Eventually, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development accused the Trumps of violating the 1968 Fair Housing Act. At one point, investigators counted seven Black families across 3,700 apartments in Trump Village, according to Trump biographer Maggie Haberman, and a Trump employee later testified that documents had a special code to flag Black applicants.

Trump dug in. Aided by his lawyer and mentor Roy Cohn, he countersued the federal government for $100 million in 1973 — equivalent to about $700 million today.

They ultimately settled the dispute, but not until 1975, after spending 18 months generating headlines in New York media to counter the government's case. Trump promised not to discriminate against prospective renters in the future, but the consent decree he signed included no admission that he'd broken the law in the first place.

Trump recounted in “Art of the Deal,” his 1987 ghost-written book: “I’d rather fight than fold, because as soon as you fold once, you get the reputation of being a folder.”

Trump wanted to evict rent-controlled tenants from 100 Central Park South so he could raze the building in the early 1980s. They fought him and in 1985 he sued the tenants’ lawyers for $105 million ($300 million-plus today). The suit got thrown out and Trump paid the defendants’ legal fees.

Attorney Martin London represented one of the defendant lawyers, Rick Fischbein, and wrote in his memoir that Fischbein framed his check from Trump after it was deposited. Fischbein later became one of Trump’s attorneys.

Trump eventually dropped his eviction suit, redeveloped the building and allowed tenants to remain there under rent-control agreements.

During the same period, Trump proposed a 150-story development off the tip of Manhattan. A Chicago Tribune critic, Paul Gapp, mocked it as “Guinness Book of World Record architecture” and “one of the silliest things anyone could inflict on New York or any other city.”

Trump sued the Pulitzer Prize winner and the Tribune Co. for $500 million (about $1.5 billion today), saying Gapp's assessment killed the project.

A federal court dismissed the suit.

In 2005, a decade before Trump launched his presidential bid and as his TV career blossomed with NBC'S “The Apprentice,” author Timothy O'Brien wrote “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.”

The book alleged that Trump was not a billionaire at all and worth between $150 million and $250 million. Trump sued and asked for $5 billion (now $8 billion-plus), saying O'Brien harmed his ability to make business deals. A New Jersey court threw out the lawsuit, and an appeals court agreed.

Trump defeated Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. That did not stop him from making her the lead client, along with a litany of others, in a 2022 lawsuit that alleged a vast conspiracy to cost him the election.

It was part of Trump's push back against a Justice Department investigation of Russia's role in the campaign. The inquiry concluded that Russia interfered in U.S. political discourse in “sweeping and systematic fashion” to help Trump and harm Clinton. But the Justice Department stopped short of saying whether Trump was involved. Trump was explicitly not exonerated in the final report, but he still used it to assert that “the Russia hoax” was a deliberate plot against him.

Middlebrooks, the Florida-based judge who got the Trump v. Clinton case, disagreed, tossed Trump's lawsuit and made Trump pay the defendants' legal fees, which combined with his reached into the millions.

“This case should never have been brought,” Middlebrooks wrote in a scathing January 2023 order. “A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law.”

Since becoming president, Trump has scored two settlements for his presidential library after suing major television news networks.

ABC News agreed in 2024 to pay $15 million to Trump's future library and $1 million in legal fees after anchor George Stephanopoulos’ legally inaccurate assertion on air that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. In fact, a New York jury found Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll in the mid-1990s but concluded she did not prove Trump raped her “within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law.”

Paramount, which owns CBS, settled with Trump in 2025 after he sued over the way “60 Minutes” edited a Kamala Harris interview during the 2024 campaign. Paramount agree to pay $16 million toward Trump's future presidential library.

Trump cited those cases in his threat to sue Noah. He followed that a day later with his threat to command $1 billion from Harvard. He's pushed previously to get $500 million from the school for other educational programs.

Trump has bucked presidential tradition by never releasing his tax returns. But after he became president, The New York Times and ProPublica published stories detailing how Trump went years paying no or little in federal income taxes after claiming substantial losses.

In 2024, former Internal Revenue Service contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn, of Washington, D.C. — who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and national security tech firm — was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking Trump's tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020.

Trump has not sued the media outlets in response. Instead, he is suing the IRS for $10 billion.

It's the largest demand ever made by plaintiff Trump, and if he were successful, it would be U.S. taxpayers paying the damages.

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President Donald Trump speaks during an event with Environmental Protection Agency director Lee Zeldin announcing that the EPA will no longer regulate greenhouse gases, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

PITTSBURGH (AP) — All of the emotions were there, from joy to jitters and everything in between.

Well, almost everything.

The one thing Konnor Griffin didn't feel when the Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop — all 19 years and 344 days of him — ahead of his big league debut Friday against the Baltimore Orioles was shock.

“I'm ready for this,” Griffin said a few hours before stepping onto the field at PNC Park as a professional for the first time.

Certainly looks that way.

All of Griffin's considerable physical gifts were on display over 2 hours and 44 electric minutes in a 5-4 victory over the Orioles.

There was the tidy double play, Pittsburgh’s first of the season, he turned in the second inning. There was the rope he hit to the wall in center field in his first at-bat in a few minutes later, a 105 mph laser off the bat against Baltimore's Kyle Bradish that scored Ryan O'Hearn and sent a jolt through a sellout crowd.

There was blistering dash from second to home on a ensuing groundball to right field by teammate Jared Triolo. There was the confidence to successfully challenge a strike call in his third at-bat. Oh, and the composure to gather a chopper he briefly bobbled before firing to first for an out to end the eighth, too.

All part of what Griffin called “hands down one of the best days of my life,” and what everyone involved with the organization hopes is the start of a long successful run for a franchise that hasn't reached the postseason in over a decade.

“He’s a difference maker, it was very apparent today,” said Pirates ace and reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes, who knows a thing or two about entering the majors with outsized expectations.

Just 628 days after Pittsburgh selected him with the ninth pick in the 2024 amateur draft, the athletic and mustachioed 6-foot-3 Griffin found a No. 6 jersey hanging in his locker at PNC Park and his name penciled in the seventh spot in the lineup against the Orioles, making him the first teenage position player to reach the majors since Juan Soto did it with the Washington Nationals in 2018.

On the surface, it seems fast. Not for Griffin, who checked every box — and quickly — while sprinting through the Pirates' system. The final steps came over the last week when he hit .438 in a handful of games for Triple-A Indianapolis.

All of which made for a full-circle moment when Griffin became the youngest Pirate to get a hit in his first game since Hall of Fame second baseman Bill Mazeroski did it on July 7, 1956. The club honored Mazeroski, who died in February at 1989, by having “Maz” painted into the outfield grass behind second, not far from where Griffin — who was scouted and signed by Mazeroski's son Darren — went to work on a warm spring afternoon that had a decidedly early fall playoff-like vibe.

“Darren is the reason I’m here,” Griffin said. "He believed in me and took a chance on me. That’s pretty special right there and I’m going to cherish that a long time.”

Griffin's call-up came less than two weeks after he was one of the last cuts during spring training, where he mashed three homers but also hit just .171. Rather than sulk, he headed to Triple-A and made the adjustments necessary — trying to get back to treating his job like a game of Wiffle ball back home in Mississippi — to get a call that has long felt inevitable.

“He just went right down and hit his stride and was able to reset in a couple of days,” Kelly said. “Which again, for anybody, is really impressive, especially for a 19-year-old kid whose hopes and dreams were to make the big leagues.”

Those dreams became reality when Indianapolis manager Eric Patterson called Griffin to his hotel room early Thursday and told him he was heading to The Show.

The next 24 hours were a blur.

From the short drive from Columbus to Pittsburgh to the scramble for at least 40 friends and family members to make it to the ballpark that's tucked hard against the Allegheny River in time for Friday's first pitch.

Griffin is the latest in a string of high-profile arrivals in Pittsburgh, from Skenes to rookie right-hander Bubba Chandler to catcher Henry Davis.

The future that has been talked about since general manager Ben Cherington was hired in late 2019 is finally arriving. And perhaps it's telling of how far the club has come that Griffin is joining a roster that has undergone a significant upgrade in recent months with the additions of All-Star second baseman Brandon Lowe, All-Star first baseman/outfielder Ryan O'Hearn and veteran designated hitter Marcell Ozuna.

A year ago, fans chanted for owner Bob Nutting to sell the club during the home opener. Those calls have faded, replaced by something seemingly just as rare: optimism for a team that hasn't won a playoff series since the 1979 World Series.

“This team is loaded,” Griffin said. “I get to come in here and just be a piece of this puzzle.”

Perhaps a very big piece. For a very long time. The Pirates and Griffin have engaged in talks about a contract extension that would lock him up for most of the next decade.

Griffin demurred when asked about it Friday, though he made his intentions very clear.

“All I’m going to say is, I want to be a Pirate for a long time,” he said. "This is a special place and I’m thankful to be here.”

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb

Pittsburgh Pirates' Ryan O'Hearn, left, dumps a cooler of ice on teammate Konnor Griffin (6) while Griffin is being interviewed following a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles in Pittsburgh, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Konnor Griffin celebrates after hitting an RBI double, his first Major League career hit and run, during the second inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles in Pittsburgh, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Konnor Griffin (6) is introduced for his major league debut before a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles in Pittsburgh, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Konnor Griffin sprints for home to score a run during the second inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres in Pittsburgh, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Konnor Griffin hits an RBI double, his first Major League career hit and run, during the second inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles in Pittsburgh, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Konnor Griffin, right, follows manager Don Kelly, center, and owner Bob Nutting into a meeting with reporters before making his Major League Baseball debut in the Pirates' home-opener against the Baltimore Orioles, Friday, April 3, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Konnor Griffin meets with reporters before making his Major League Baseball debut in the Pirates' home-opener against the Baltimore Orioles, Friday, April 3, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Konnor Griffin meets with reporters before making his Major League Baseball debut in the Pirates' home-opener against the Baltimore Orioles, Friday, April 3, 2026, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)