As the “lawfare” attacks on then-candidate Donald Trump piled up in 2023 and 2024, his family came to the sobering conclusion that Democrats’ goal was to fatally poison the MAGA movement — and to do that they had to put the former president in jail.
And even as he argued his cases in uphill battles before Democrat-connected judges, family members said they realized the best way to keep Mr. Trump out of jail was to win the 2024 election, according to “Lawless Lawfare,” a new book by The Washington Times’ Alex Swoyer.
“They used the justice system as an arm of the Democratic Party, with the ultimate goal of putting their political opponent behind bars based on lies, smears, due process denial, and all the rest. It was a disgrace,” Donald Trump Jr. told Ms. Swoyer.
“I fully believe that had my father-in-law not won the election on November fifth, he would have spent some time in jail,” said Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law. “That was their goal — was to put him in jail, to have the optics of that to send it out as a warning to people out there: Don’t try to go against the grain so much, because this is ultimately what could happen to you. Don’t be outspoken, because this is what could ultimately happen to you.”
Lawfare is the term lawyers and journalists have given to those who use investigations and court proceedings to try to stop their opponents.
In recent years it has become synonymous with the legal circus that has surrounded Mr. Trump, who from the moment he descended the escalator at Trump Tower 10 years ago and declared his candidacy has seen his political career play out in courtrooms as much as in Congress and on the campaign trail.
He faced myriad investigations — including by his own Justice Department while he was in his first term. He faced two different special counsel probes launched by the Biden administration, both of which led to criminal charges, and he faced multiple state-level criminal cases.
The Russia “collusion” investigation cratered after it became clear it was the result of Russian disinformation shared by the Clinton campaign. The other criminal cases suffered legal setbacks from skeptical judges, and ultimately disappeared when Mr. Trump swept into office for a second term.
A blue-state attempt to keep Mr. Trump off ballots over “insurrection” accusations also failed, though that took a Supreme Court ruling to sink those efforts.
Ms. Swoyer, The Times’ legal affairs reporter and a lawyer with membership in the Supreme Court bar, argues the anti-Trump cases were set up to fail because they were based more in politics than the law.
“It felt as though Trump Derangement Syndrome took over America’s courtrooms,” Ms. Swoyer wrote in her introduction to the book, which goes on sale Tuesday through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
She said Mr. Trump was pursued by “Democratic lawmakers, progressive lawyers and biased judges” intent on stamping out the MAGA movement they saw as repugnant. The result was damage to some of America’s major institutions, including the presidency, the press and the judiciary itself.
“The MAGA-targeted litigation was meant to drain any and all political opposition financially, mentally, and emotionally until they either complied, died, or were locked up. Thankfully, it did not work, and Americans saw through the dangerous scheme,” she wrote.
She also found an untold story in the personal consequences suffered by those in Mr. Trump’s orbit.
“We all, as a family, have experienced things,” Lara Trump told Ms. Swoyer. “I won’t even go into the personal side of this for us, which has affected our ability to get a loan for a house or a mortgage or whatever it is. We all in the Trump family have been negatively impacted by what these people have tried to do in the name of politics.”
She said the constant courtroom drama ended up backfiring on Democrats. Each time a new legal attack surfaced, his personal poll numbers rose.
Ms. Trump pointed to his famous mug shot, which he sat for in 2023 after being indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, on racketeering charges that he allegedly conspired with others to overturn the 2020 election in the state.
Mr. Trump glares into the camera with a defiant, stern countenance, with a golden sheen bouncing off his blond hair.
Ms. Trump told Ms. Swoyer her father-in-law had called her on his way and she told him it was going to be “the coolest mug shot that this country has ever seen.” And it was.
“People were like, ’that is bad-ass. What a photo! That is like Elvis Presley level,” Ms. Trump recounted.
Donald Trump Jr. said his father isn’t bothered by being labeled a “felon” or “convict.” Indeed, like the mugshot, he sees it as “sort of a symbol for standing against the corrupt swamp establishment and standing with the tens of millions of everyday, commonsense Americans who supported him.”
Ms. Swoyer said the official legal investigations against Mr. Trump cost taxpayers $86 million.
He himself faced more than $673 million in legal penalties stemming from civil fraud and defamation cases. And the president was forced to do nearly 90 campaign rallies while under gag orders from criminal proceedings, a questionable move testing the First Amendment’s protection of political speech.
Stephen Bannon, a close advisor to Mr. Trump, said the lawfare made it difficult for Mr. Trump to pursue his agenda in his first term.
“The deep state, their number one objective is to make sure you begin no program of deconstructing the administrative state,” he told Ms. Swoyer. “If you think about it, they did a pretty good job. They stopped us from any real deconstruction. We did some deregulation, but we really didn’t get down to the heart of it. They definitely thwarted us on every element.”
Mr. Bannon personally saw the lawfare, ending up with a conviction for fraud concerning a private border wall outfit. He received a presidential pardon, then later ended up serving time because he refused to testify or turn over documents to congressional Democrats’ probe into the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Michael Flynn, a Trump sacrifice on the Russia collusion altar who received a presidential pardon in 2020, told Ms. Swoyer the 2024 election was a vindication after what he went through.
“I feel like an incredible weight was lifted off my shoulders that night when he declared victory, and I felt like, ‘Okay, this actually shows that the American people clearly understand what happened,’ and they know how evil it is inside of our government and the corruption that is really deep inside our government,” he said.
