January 2015 - California High School Speech Association: Fill & Download for Free

The most unbelievable thing about music history is how racist it has been.Duke Ellington is considered to be one of the most significant musicians and composers of the 20th century. He appears on Washington DC’s state quarter, and his statue stands at the northeast corner of Central Park in New York City. Schools around the world teach and perform his music. It is shocking, then, to read critical assessments of Ellington’s music when he first came to wide prominence in the 1930s.The critic Winthrop Sargent (1943) echoed highbrow consensus when he wrote that jazz “is not music in the sense that an opera or a symphony is music. It is a variety of folk music” (p. 405). Sargent believed that jazz was a lower form that black audiences embraced because they did not know any better: “Give him the chance to study, and the Negro will soon turn from boogie woogie to Beethoven” (p. 409).A music education periodical called The Etude devoted its entire August 1924 issue to “The Jazz Problem.” In his introductory essay, editor James Francis Cooke wrote that jazz would need to dramatically transformed by composers before it would have any real value: “In its original form it has no place in musical education and deserves none” (quoted in Maita, 2014). While other contributors to the issue had more conflicted and nuanced views of jazz, the general tone was dismissive. Even when they acknowledged that jazz was popular, the writers in The Etude saw its main virtue as being effective bait to lure young people into the study of “serious” music.Ellington was the first jazz composer to be taken at all seriously by classical critics. However, even his supporters found ways to demean him, intentionally or not. Darrell (1932) was the first in-depth critical review of Ellington’s music. Darrell praised Ellington for “economy of means, satisfying proportion of detail, and the sense of inevitability—of anticipation and revelatory fulfillment—that are the decisive qualifications of musical forms” (p. 58, emphasis in original). However, when he placed the music in context, he was stunningly offensive by modern standards:[W]hen I upturn treasure in what others consider to be the very muck of music, I cannot be surprised or disappointed if my neighbor sees only mud where I see gold, ludicrous eccentricity where I find an expressive expansion of the tonal palette, tawdry tunes instead of deep song, ’nigger music’ instead of ’black beauty’ (p. 58).Darrell came to particularly admire Ellington’s “Black and Tan Fantasy” (1929), but his initial reaction to it was derision:I laughed like everyone else over its instrumental wa-waing and gargling and gobbling, the piteous whinnying of a very ancient horse, the lugubrious reminiscence of the Chopin funeral march. But as I continued to play the record for the amusement of my friends I laughed less heartily and with less zest. In my ears the whinnies and wa-was began to resolve into new tone colors, distorted and tortured, but agonizingly expressive. The piece took on a surprising individuality and entity as well as an intensity of feeling that was totally incongruous in popular dance music. Beneath all its oddity and perverseness there was a twisted beauty that grew on me more and more and could not be shaken off (p. 58).Lambert (1934) was another early champion of Ellington from within the classical music world, but he, too, felt the need to qualify his praise with condescension. He prefaced his discussion of Ellington by observing that “Negro talent” was “on the whole more executive than creative” (p. 206), meaning that jazz musicians were better at interpreting other people’s ideas than at having ideas of their own. However, Lambert found Ellington to be “a real composer, the first jazz composer of distinction, and the first negro composer of distinction” (p. 214). Soon after this review was published, The Philadelphia Record interviewed Ellington and asked him to respond to Lambert’s praise. They describe his response as “a look of simple wonder,” and rendering his quotes in dialect, e.g., “Is zat so?” (quoted in Tucker, 1993, p. 112). This is likely to be an extreme misrepresentation of the suave and well-mannered Ellington.In the face of so much disrespect and dismissal, it is remarkable how firm Ellington was in his conviction that he was a legitimate artist. He saw no contradiction between playing for dancers and being a “serious” composer, between playing in concert halls and in high school gyms, or between performing for heads of state and for local Elks clubs (Dance, 1970, p. 11). Ellington resisted applying the term “jazz” to his music, not because he felt any shame in it, but because he did not like being boxed into a category. In a 1930 interview in New York Evening Graphic Magazine, he said, “I am not playing jazz. I am trying to play the natural feelings of a people. I believe that music, popular music of the day, is the real reflector of the nation’s feelings” (quoted in Tucker, 1993, p. 45).Ellington saw the black culture he represented as the true creative voice of the United States. He believed not only that black people had created America’s cultural wealth, but that they were also the voice of the nation’s moral conscience, because black Americans embodied the contradiction between the nation’s abstract principles and the reality. In a speech to Scott Methodist Church in 1941, Ellington said:We stirred in our shackles and our unrest awakened Justice in the hearts of a courageous few, and we recreated in America the desire for true democracy, freedom for all, the brotherhood of man, principles on which the country had been founded… We’re the injection, the shot in the arm, that has kept America and its forgotten principles alive in the fat and corrupt years intervening between our divine conception and our near tragic present (quoted in Tucker, 1999, p. 148).Ellington’s own compositions reflected his pride in black history. His piece Black, Brown and Beige, premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1943, was a “tone parallel to the history of the American Negro.” He also wrote music depicting and celebrating iconic black musicians and entertainers, as well as the black communities in Harlem and New Orleans (Tucker, 1990).Today, jazz is taught in one form or another by most American college music departments, and by many high schools as well. However, outside of a few specialized institutions like the Berklee College of Music, jazz is a peripheral part of the curriculum. European-descended orchestras, marching bands and choirs continue to predominate in school music. Music theory and history curricula also continue to focus on the European classical tradition to the near-exclusion of all else. At New York University, for example, all music majors, regardless of specialty or focus, must complete a set of core requirements in European classical theory, history, and ear training. The music history sequence is the familiar litany of white classical composers, with a token jazz musician or two tacked onto the end. Otherwise, jazz as a subject is entirely elective at New York University. Most university music programs are similar in this regard.The white reception of black American vernacular music undergoes a predictable cycle. During the time that a given style is popular with young black audiences, it is usually reviled by the white mainstream. Then young white audiences become interested in the style, beginning with hipsters and outsiders, who bring along everyone else. As those white listeners get older and attain cultural authority, they advocate for their preferred music styles, which then become canonized. Spirituals were the first African-American form to become canonical “art,” followed by ragtime, then jazz, then soul and R&B. Rock has mostly turned into a canonical music as well, and hip-hop is already in the early stages. This canonization can only safely happen once the music is no longer associated with sensuality and dance. Our cultural gatekeepers continue to find it difficult to see the music that young people enjoy dancing to as “art.” Malcolm X (1965) describes people dancing to Ellington at the Roseland Ballroom as being in an ecstatic frenzy. This is a polar opposite to the atmosphere of the concert hall, or the college classroom. Ellington saw no contradiction between playing for dancers and being an artist, but the academy only fully embraced him once he ceased to be a dance musician. To this day, the music academy remains reluctant to validate social dance or the music that inspires it.Jazz would appear to be “safe” for formal academic settings. It has been many years since Ellington’s music was associated with hustlers, gangsters, nightclubs and zoots. But the plunger-muted horns still have the power to shock with their bodily intimacy. “The sounds of pain are often indistinguishable from those of ecstasy. Hearing either one makes us uncomfortable, as if we were listening to something not meant for our ears, but that, upon the hearing, draws us into and implicates us in the experience, often as interlopers” (Kapchan, 2017, p. 282). Listening to such sounds is a full-body experience, and our reactions take place very much from the neck down. When we listen to “Creole Love Call” or “Black and Tan Fantasy,” the rhythms and melodies might be safely dated and distant, but the animalistic sounds of the horns continue to be as arresting as an unexpected physical touch.That college music departments have admitted Ellington to the canon is an improvement over excluding him. But American colleges and universities continue to center the traditions of upper-class Western Europeans from centuries ago. In so doing, they send a message: that European-descended tastes are a fundamental truth rather than a set of arbitrary and contingent preferences, and that white cultural dominance is normative. Music is an art form, but it is also a discipline, a set of techniques and procedures, a technology of cultural power. The state and its laws are “only the terminal forms power takes,” the “institutional crystallization” of forces at play throughout all the hierarchies that make up a society (Foucault, 1978, pp. 92-93). Figures like Ellington are still exceptions, still special cases. When we accord him the full respect he is due, and learn to embrace his process as well as his product, we will send a very different message to students about the value of blackness in general. We will no longer legitimize contempt for blackness, or well-meaning condescension to it.ReferencesAlanen, A. (2015). Black and Tan. Retrieved from Black and TanBlacking, J. (1990). “A commonsense view of all music”: Reflections on Percy Grainger’s contribution to ethnomusicology and music education. New York: Cambridge University Press.Boyle, J. (2009). The jazz problem? Retrieved October 12, 2017, from The Jazz Problem?Bradbury, D. (2005). Duke Ellington. London: Haus Publishing.Chinen, N. (2007, January 7). Jazz Is alive and well. In the classroom, anyway. The New York Times. New York. Retrieved from Jazz Education - Music - ReportDance, S. (1970). The world of Duke Ellington. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Darrell, R. D. (n.d.). Black beauty. In M. Tucker (Ed.), The Duke Ellington reader (pp. 57–65). New York: Oxford University Press.Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality. Volume I: An introduction. New York: Vintage Books.Hall, B., & Hall, M. (2015). Gene Hall. Retrieved December 13, 2017, from Hall, Gene | Grove MusicKapchan, D. (2017). Listening acts – Witnessing the pain (and praise) of others. In D. Kapchan (Ed.), Theorizing sound writing. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.Karns, K. (2015). A brief history of jazz education prior to 1950. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAZZ EDUCATION PRIOR TO 1950Kelley, R. D. G. (1996). Race rebels: Culture, politics, and the Black working class. New York: Simon and Schuster.Kennedy, G. (2017). Jazz education. In B. Kernfeld (Ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2nd (Web)). New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from Jazz education (jazz) | Grove MusicKratus, J. (2015). The role of subversion in changing music education. In C. Randles (Ed.), Music education: Navigating the future (pp. 340–346). New York & London: Routledge.Lambert, C. (1934). Music Ho! A study of music in decline. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Lawrence, A. H. (2004). Duke Ellington and his world. New York: Routledge.Maita, J. (2014). Revisiting “The Jazz Problem.” Retrieved October 12, 2017, from http://jerryjazzmusician.com/2014/02/revisiting-jazz-problem/Mark, M. L. (1987). The acceptance of jazz in the music education curriculum: A model for interpreting a historical process. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, (92), 15–21.McClary, S. (2000). Conventional wisdom: The content of musical form. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Moten, F. (2003). In the break: The aesthetics of the Black radical tradition. University of Minnesota Press.Murphy, D. (1929). Black and Tan. United States: RKO Radio Pictures.Rodriguez, A. (2012). A brief history of jazz education, pt. 1. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from A Brief History Of Jazz Education, Pt. 1Sargent, W. (1943, October). Is jazz music? The American Mercury.Small, C. (2011). Music of the common tongue: Survival and celebration in African-American music. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Teachout, T. (2013). Duke: A life of Duke Ellington. New York: Gotham Books.Tucker, M. (1990). The renaissance education of Duke Ellington. In S. Floyd (Ed.), Black music in the Harlem Renaissance. Knoxville: University of Tennessee.Tucker, M. (1993). The Duke Ellington reader. New York: Oxford University Press.X, Malcolm. (1965). The Autobiography of Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley). New York: Ballantine Books.

When Charlie Chaplin wanted to make The Great Dictator (1940), a movie mocking Hitler, he had to make it with his own money because Hollywood was afraid of losing money if they took a stand as USA hadn’t entered the war yet then.In the biopic about his life Chaplin (1992), his daughter Geraldine Chaplin, played her own grandmother, Hannah Chaplin.In 2015, the first Oscar he ever won for the movie The Circus (1928) was stolen from the Parisian office of Chaplin Association during a break in. The Oscar is valued at US$1 million and hasn’t been recovered since.When he received an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972, he received a 12 minute standing ovation, a record which hasn’t been matched since.The Wizard of Oz (1939)Three different Cairn terriers were used to play ‘Toto’ but the first two ran away and one returned to the same MGM lot two years after filming ended.In one scene, they showed apples on a tree and they were originally green (as in the novel) but they didn’t show up well on film and had to be repainted in red. Nobody thought to tell Judy Garland when she took a bite out of one.How Terry the Rug-Wetting Terrier Became TotoThe Godfather (1972)The word "mafia" is never mentioned in the film because the actual mafia demanded it.The infamous dead horse scene on the bed was an actual head of a horse.The actors researched their roles by hanging out with real mobsters. Brando prepared for his role by meeting with a Bufalino gangster. Pacino, Caan, and Duvall have all acknowledged meetings with mobsters, as well, with Caan becoming especially familiar with Carmine "The Snake" Persico and noting "how they're always touching themselves. Thumbs in the belt. Touching the jaw. Adjusting the shirt. Gripping the crotch."Marlon Brando did not memorize most of his lines and read from cue cards during most of the film. When he auditioned for the part he stuffed his cheeks with cotton to give him a distinctive look. During the filming of the movie, he had a dentist make him a mouth piece to simulate that effect.He also modeled his speech after mob boss Frank Costello whom he saw testifying in a trial on TV. Brando also played pranks on the set all the time; one of them was he put weights under him when he was being carried into the house, up the stairs, on a stretcher. The actors who had to carry him were not amused.The Exorcist (1973)The character of the priest, Father Dyer, is played by William O'Malley, an actual priest who taught at Fordham Prep, a Jesuit high school, until 2012.The radiologist’s assistant was played by Paul Bates, who was a convicted murderer. He dismembered and killed several gay men in the late 1970′s.Mercedes McCambridge swallowed raw eggs, drank whiskey, and smoked copious amounts of cigarettes in order to produce the demon voice.The scene where Regan projectile vomits at Father Karras was intended to hit Jason Miller in the chest, but the plastic tubing misfired, hitting him in the face. His reaction of shock and disgust while wiping away the vomit is genuine, and Miller later admitted in an interview that he was very angered by this mistake.Carrie (1976)It was Stephen King’s first novel to be adapted into a movie and he was only paid US$2,500 for it. On hindsight of the film’s success, King expressed no regrets as it was his first time and he had a lot to learn about the whole experience.Stephen King’s name was misspelled in the trailer as ‘Steven’, not ‘Stephen’.Brian De Palma and George Lucas did their casting for both this movie and Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) at the same time. As the two directors were good friends, they decided to hold joint auditions which was rather unorthodox and ended up becoming a bit confusing. De Palma liked Amy Irving for the lead role in this movie but she also ended up being considered for the role of Princess Leia before De Palma finally cast her as ‘Sue Snell’ for this movie. William Katt, who played Irving’s boyfriend, Tommy Ross, in the movie, also auditioned for Luke Skywalker and the two of them dated briefly in real life. Also in the running for the title role of Carrie was Carrie Fisher, who would, of course, play Princess Leia.It was John Travolta’s big screen debut. Prior to this movie, audiences had only known him from the TV series Welcome Back, Kotter (TV Series 1975–1979) but he was such a big star that his name was second billed even though he had only a minor supporting role.Sissy Spacek wasn’t De Palma’s first choice for the title role who only agreed to give her an audition as a favour to her husband, art director Jack Fisk. She showed up at her audition in an old dress she hadn’t worn since grade school and with her hair slicked back with Vaseline and waited in the parking lot while her husband reviewed her audition with the rest of the production team. After Fisk came out to tell her that the part was hers, “We sped off before anybody could change his mind,” Spacek said. She also spent most of the production isolated from the rest of the cast to fully embrace the part but did explain to everyone before the start of the production so as to avoid any offence to anyone.Spoilers: The scene where a hand reaches out from Carrie’s grave to grab Sue Snell, Spacek insisted on doing it even though they already had a stunt person ready on hand. Spacek ended up being buried for the shoot.Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) & Raging Bull (1980)Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar for playing Loretta Lynn in the movie with the real-life Loretta Lynn in attendance in the audience witnessing the victory. That same evening, Robert De Niro won the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980) with the real life Jake LaMotta in attendance in the audience too. It was the first such time an event like that has ever happened.E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)The legendary movie is perhaps the most family friendly fare ever but when it was released, it was banned in a few countries in Scandinavia. One of the cited reasons was how it featured ‘adults being enemies of children’. When Scandinavia banned E.T. for the under-11s.The candy E.T. eats was supposed to be M&M's, but Mars (M&M's manufacturer) turned down Spielberg's request to use it in the film. Spielberg then approached Hershey's, who allowed him to use its Reese's Pieces. This product placement of course skyrocketed Reese’s sales after the success of the movie.Harrison Ford, already a good friend of Steven Spielberg, plays a cameo as the principal of Elliott’s school in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). So as not to distract audiences from the main principal actors of the movie, his role was filmed in silhouette. Some edits of the film deleted the scene completely.Poltergeist (1982)The corpses in the rainy Poltergeist pool scene were real skeletons. It was supposedly cheaper than fabricating fake ones, and the actress who starred in the scene, JoBeth Williams, wasn't told they were real until after shooting.In the scene where Robbie (played by Oliver Robins) gets choked by the clown, he almost turned purple before the director realised he was being choked for real.The franchise was also beset with tragedies starting with Dominique Dunne who played the oldest sister. She was killed by her abusive ex-boyfriend, John Sweeney, just a few months after the movie was released. This series of tragedies have given rise to the theory that the movie was cursed right from the start.The Terminator (1984)James Cameron was homeless when writing the movie "The Terminator," and sold the rights for US$1, on the condition he could direct it.O.J. Simpson almost played the Terminator, but James Cameron thought his persona was “too pleasant”to portray such a dark character.Schwarzenegger was paid approximately US$21,429 for every word he said in Terminator 2 (1991).In Terminator 2 (1991), Linda Hamilton’s twin sister, Leslie Hamilton Gearren, played her twin in the scene with the two Sarah Connor’s.20 Things You (Probably) Didn’t Know About Terminator 2: Judgment DayIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)Indiana Jones was based on a real archaeologist named Otto Rahn who was openly gay.The Indiana Jones movies inspired a lot more young people to take up archaeology. Universities reported a sharp increase in the intake for the archaeology department after the movies premiered.Harrison Ford’s stunt double for all three movies was Vic Armstrong whom the rest of the cast and crew kept mistaking for Ford. Ford once remarked to him “if you learn how to talk, I’m in deep trouble”.Jurassic Park (1993)The dinosaur noises were made from recordings of tortoise sex.Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump and The Shawshank Redemption were all in theatres at the same time in October of 1994.Titanic (1997)The budget for the movie was higher than the Titanic itself.James Cameron sought Hollywood funding for the movie, not because he wanted to make the movie, but because he wanted to dive to the shipwreck which he commemorated in Ghosts of the Abyss (2003).It won 11 Oscars, but none for acting.The scene of the old couple in bed together as the water rose around them was based on a real life couple, Isa & Isidor Strauss, owners of Macy’s Department Store.Isidor Strauss, together with Benjamin Guggenheim and Jacob Astor were three of the most powerful men in USA at the time and they all perished in the Titanic. They were also the same men who opposed the creation of the Federal Reserve which has given rise to the conspiracy theory that the ship was sabotaged on purpose by the Rothschilds who were determined to proceed with it.James Cameron wanted to show a reproduction of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in a scene in which Kate Winslet is seen unpacking it. When the ship goes down, the painting is shown sinking below the waves but the Picasso estate decided that it could not authorize the inclusion of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in the film because the painting has been on display at the Museum of Modern Art for well over 60 years and it wouldn’t make sense for it to be on the ship. Despite being refused permission, Cameron included it in anyway and they spotted it and the filmmakers had to negotiate a substantial fee, which included a hefty penalty.Leonardo DiCaprio’s (in)famous line "I'm the king of the world!” was improvised and wasn’t in the original script.29 days after the Titanic sank, a movie about it was released titled Saved from the Titanic (1912) starring Dorothy Gibson, an actress who was one of the survivors of the sinking. It was a one reel short film and it was her last before she retired from acting and moved to Europe. She lived in Italy and France and was even suspected of spying for the Nazis during World War II. She died in Paris of a heart attack just as the war had ended.Rocky (1976)Sylvester Stallone was so poor, he had to sell his dog for $50. A week later, he sold the script for Rocky and bought him back for $3,000.United Artists offered Stallone up to US$340,000 to sell them the rights to the screenplay of Rocky if he agreed to not star in the movie. He refused.Sylvester Stallone wrote the script in 3.5 days by hand with a bic pen.The movie was made for a budget of US$1 million, a record for a Best Picture winner which was only broken by the movie Moonlight (2016), 40 years later.The movie was shot in 28 days.Rocky's pet turtles were played by the same two turtles in both this movie and Rocky Balboa (2006).Star Wars - WikipediaYoda was modelled after Albert Einstein.After watching Star Wars, James Cameron decided to quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry.The sounds of the light saber was made by combining the hum of an idle film projector and the buzz from an old TV set.Depending on which Star Wars movie you're watching, Yoda has a different number of toes.While filming in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, Peter Mayhew (who plays Chewbacca) was warned not to wander off set as they were afraid his 2.21 m height would get him mistaken for a forest animal and get shot.All the door frames for Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) had to be rebuild due to Liam Neeson’s height (6' 4" (1.93 m)). The changes racked up an additional $150,000 in production costs.In 2013, Star Wars was dubbed in Navajo, making it the first major film to be dubbed in a Native American language.Carrie Fisher became iconic as Princess Leia but regretted taking the role as nobody took her seriously as an actress afterwards and she had trouble finding good roles for herself.Candyman (1992)Eddie Murphy was almost cast but lost out as he wasn’t considered tall enough to be the menacing figure his character was supposed to be.Tony Todd, who played Candyman in the film by the same name, had actual bees in his mouth while filming the climactic scene. He wore a throat guard for protection and was stung 23 minutes with a bonus given for each sting he received.Virginia Madsen's face was also showered with live bees.Virginia Madsen was supposed to have played the role of Bernie but the actress who was supposed to have played Helen got pregnant and had to drop out of the movie. Although Ms Madsen earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in Sideways (2004), she says she is still recognised for her role in this movie.The role of Helen was almost given to Sandra Bullock but she was still an unknown then and lost out to the more recognisable Virginia Madsen.Though the Chicago-based legend of Candyman is a work of fiction, there was an actual serial killer known as “Candyman” or “The Candy Man.” Between 1970 and 1973, Dean Corll kidnapped, tortured, and murdered at least 28 young boys in the Houston area and earned his sweet nickname from the fact that his family owned a candy factory.Scream (1996)The mask is mostly based on the painting "Scream" by Edvard Munch.At the tenth minute mark, when the killer smashes his head through a window, Casey (Drew Barrymore) hits him in the face with the phone, it was actually director Wes Craven playing the killer and the hit on his face was real.Courteney Cox was riding high on the success of Friends (TV Series 1994–2004) and had difficulty convincing the producers of this movie that she would be perfect for the role of bitchy journalist Gale Weathers. She convinced them that BECAUSE nobody would expect her to play such a vicious role and auditioned so many times that they were finally won over.For her role as Tatum Riley, Rose McGowan dyed her hair blonde to differentiate herself between co-star and lead actress Neve Campbell. McGowan also discovered that she could fit into a pet door in real life.The high school scenes were supposed to be shot at Santa Rosa High School in California but the school board had mistakenly thought they were shooting a comedy and realised their mistake very close to the shooting date and denied permission at the last minute. Production had to be moved to another location to Healdsburg, California, which infuriated director Wes Craven and he included under the "Special Thanks" section, "NO THANKS WHATSOEVER TO THE SANTA ROSA CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT GOVERNING BOARD."This film has been credited for the triple fold increase of the sale of caller ID’s.The actor whose voice is used to play the killer, Roger Jackson, did not meet any of the actors until filming ended so as to maintain the intensity and mystery of the movie.Wes Craven directed all three sequels of this movie, something which has never been done before in the slasher horror genre where the director of the first movie goes on to direct the sequels of the franchise.The party scene near the end of the film runs forty-two minutes long and was shot over the course of twenty-one days from sundown to sunrise. It proved to be so arduous that when the film shoot finally ended, the crew had t-shirts made that read " I SURVIVED SCENE 118" (which was the name of the scene during shooting). The cast and crew jokingly called it "The longest night in horror history."This movie is the highest grossing movie in the slasher horror genre.The Matrix (1999)The movie took five years to write.The green falling code is just loads of sushi recipes.Keanu Reeves gave US$80 million of his US$114 million salary to the special effects and makeup staff whom he felt were the ones to have made the movie the success it was.Oldboy (2003)Min-sik Choi had to eat four whole living octopi on camera before the director captured the perfect shot. Min-sik is also a Buddhist, and would pray for forgiveness after each take.Hostel (2005)Hostel began life as a documentary about an underground extreme thrill-seeking practice director Eli Roth discovered online whereby participants pay $10,000 to kill someone. The practice was supposedly not illegal because people volunteered to be murdered, specifically extremely poor people from rural communities who sacrificed themselves so their families could have money. Afraid of incurring the wrath of the people running the place, Roth decided to turn it into a movie instead.The Strangers (2008)This sleeper 2008 hit was partially based on the director’s Bryan Bertino’s childhood experience. "At the door were some people asking for somebody that didn't live there. We later found out that these people were knocking on doors in the area and, if no one was home, breaking into the houses." .Gravity (2013)The movie Gravity was more expensive than the Indian Mars mission.In the movie, debris in space is depicted as moving from east to west when in real life, it should move the other way round.Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)The stunt doubles for Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, Dayna Porter and Dane Porter fell in love on set and got married. Theron and Hardy themselves didn’t get along while on set but have since made up.The flame-shooting guitar weighed 132 pounds and shot real flames.BatmanRobin Williams was offered The Joker role when Jack Nicholson hesitated but when Nicholson finally agreed, Williams was unceremoniously dropped. Williams resented being used as bait and would later reject the role of The Riddler when offered to him even though many agree he would be perfect for the role.Batman Returns (1992) - Michelle Pfeiffer (playing Catwoman) had to wear a latex suit which she had to be vacuumed into and it was so tight that she could only wear it for a limited no. of time for each take or she would pass out. Because of that too, she couldn’t really hear her own voice and Tim Burton had to direct her to talk loudly when she began speaking too softly.The scene where Catwoman dismembers the mannequin heads with the whip was shot in one take. Michelle Pfeiffer rehearsed for weeks and did it perfectly in one try, prompting a rousing applause from cast and crew.Nicholson had also warned Heath Ledger about playing the role when he took it up in Christopher Nolan’s 2008 adaption The Dark Knight (2008. Ledger would profess to being tortured by the role, eventually succumbing to an accidental overdose of a combination of prescription medications in January 2008. Heath Ledger's father reveals dead actor's 'Joker diary' writtenLedger was so good in that role that when Michael Caine (playing Alfred) saw him in the first scene they shared together, he (Caine) forgot his lines. Nolan liked his genuine reaction and kept it for the movie.Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)This movie was a huge hit in Israel, in part because Borat's "Kazakh" lines were all actually in Hebrew. (Lead actor Sasha Baron Cohen is Jewish)It was initially heavily criticised by the Kazakh government but the movie inadvertently boosted tourism in the country and is now encouraged viewing by them.The parody national anthem of Kazakhstan from the movie was accidentally downloaded and played in the 2012 Olympics for a Kazakh gold medalist.As much as the movie has been embraced in Kazakhstan, some of its lesser finer elements hasn’t been, namely, the fluorescent coloured mankini. In November 2017, 6 male Czech tourists were fined when they wore the mankinis when they were visiting Kazakhstan. Baron Cohen offered to pay their fines for themCars (2006)This was the last feature film for Paul Newman, before his death of lung cancer in 2008. It also turned out to be the highest-grossing movie of his career.It was also the last film by co-writer and co-director Joe Ranft, who died in a car crash in 2005 while the film was still in production.Se7en (1995) & Contagion (2011)Gwnyeth Paltrow’s severed head which was used in the final scene of Se7en (1995) was later used again in the autopsy scene in the movie Contagion (2011)A United Kingdom (2016)This is based on the true story of the then-prince of Botswana whose marriage to an English clerk in 1960’s UK created political and diplomatic turmoil between the two countries. This movie was filmed in Botswana and the then President of Botswana, Ian Khama, dropped by the set unannounced one day. He was the son of the king portrayed in the movie and he watched a reel of the movie of a scene between the two leads, after which he turned to David Oyelowo (who plays his father) and said that he never thought he'd see his parents together again.Finding Nemo (2003)Extensive motion capture was used of actual great white sharks to get Bruce the ‘shark’s look. Six different sharks were used including two from the private collection of Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas.Manoel de Oliveira was the oldest living director when he died in 2015. He began directing movies in 1931 with Labor on the Douro River (1931) and didn’t stop working until he passed away at the age of 106. His last credit is a documentary short Um Século de Energia (2015) shot the same year he passed away.Steven SpielbergAccording to a study on Academy Awards speeches, Steven Spielberg has been thanked more than God.He completed his degree course in 2016, 33 years after dropping out, by submitting Schindler's List (1993) as his final project.After being given the story of Schindler's List, he waited 10 years to make the film as he didn't feel mature enough at the time.He had also declined to direct the Harry Potter movies and said "It's just like withdrawing a billion dollars and putting it into your personal bank accounts. There's no challenge."James Bond 007Sean Connery wore a toupee in all of the James Bond movies because he started balding at age 21.The deadliest James Bond was Pierce Brosnan, who killed an average of 33.8 people per movie.James Bond is known as ‘Mr Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang' in Italy.From Dr. No to Quantum of Solace, James Bond has killed 352 people and slept with 52 women.Liam Neeson, now an action movie star, declined the role of James Bond in 1994 because he "wasn't interested in starring in action movies." His belief was compounded by his wife, Natasha Richardson, who had warned him against taking the role after Pierce Brosnan vacated it stating that she wouldn’t marry him if he took it.Actor John Hurt holds the record for dying in more than 40 different movies including Alien (1979), Spaceballs (1987), Hellboy (2004) and V for Vendetta (2005).Actor Sean Bean has died on 32% of his movies, the highest percentage of any living actor of note. He has gone on record as saying that he refuses to take anymore roles where he gets killed off and there is a hashtag to support his cause on that #DontKillSeanBean.[1]Picture source:-[Remember This?] Spielberg Dumps JoBeth Williams In A Pool With Real Skeletons In 'Poltergeist'! - Bloody DisgustingUK Movies GroupMad Max and Furiosa's stunt doubles marry after meeting on setFiery TunesThe green code in The Matrix has finally be translated 20 years laterWorld’s Oldest Director, Manoel de Oliveira, Dies at 106Steven Spielberg's Advice To Harvard Grads: Be A Movie Hero14 Celebrities Secretly Hidden in Your Favorite Movies10 Things You Didn't Know About "The Godfather" Including the Horse's Head Was Real!A United Kingdom vs True Story of Seretse Khama and Ruth WilliamsFootnotes[1] After Being Killed 23 Times Sean Bean Refuses To Die On Screen Again By Rejecting Some Roles

Our boy Trump has spent a lot of time and money in and out of court. The following very long and ongoing list of court cases won and lost, is compliments of Wikipedia:Trump and his businesses have been involved in 3,500 legal cases in U.S. federal courts and state court, an unprecedented number for a U.S. presidential candidate.[1]Of the 3,500 suits, Trump or one of his companies were plaintiffs in 1,900; defendants in 1,450; and bankruptcy, third party, or other in 150.[1]Trump was named in at least 169 suits in federal court.[2]Over 150 other cases were in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida (covering Broward County, Florida) since 1983.[3]In about 500 cases, judges dismissed plaintiffs' claims against Trump. In hundreds more, cases ended with the available public record unclear about the resolution.[1]Where there was a clear resolution, Trump won 451 times, and lost 38.[4]The topics of the legal cases include contract disputes, defamation claims, and allegations of sexual harassment. Trump's companies have been involved in more than 100 tax disputes, and on "at least three dozen" occasions the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has obtained tax liens against Trump properties for nonpayment of taxes.[1]On a number of occasions, Trump has threatened legal action but did not ultimately follow through.[5]Of Trump's involvement in the lawsuits, his lawyer Alan Garten said in 2015 that this was "a natural part of doing business in [the United States]",[5][6]and in the real estate industry, litigation to enforce contracts and resolve business disputes is indeed common.[5]Trump has, however, been involved in far more litigation than fellow real-estate magnates; the USA Today analysis in 2016 found that Trump had been involved in legal disputes more than Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., Donald Bren, Stephen M. Ross, Sam Zell, and Larry Silverstein combined.[1]The Trump lawsuits[5][6]have attracted criticism from Trump's opponents, who say that this is not a trait that conservatives should support.[5]James Copland, director of legal policy at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, states that "Trump clearly has an affinity for filing lawsuits, partly because he owns a lot of businesses" and has sometimes used litigation as a "bullying tactic".[5]Although Trump has said that he "never" settles legal claims, Trump and his businesses have settled with plaintiffs in at least 100 cases (mostly involving personal injury claims arising from injuries at Trump properties), with settlements ranging as high as hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars[1]and recently as high as tens of millions of dollars.[7]Among the most well-known Trump legal cases was the Trump University litigation. Three legal actions were brought alleging fraud, one by the New York State Attorney General and the others by class action plaintiffs.[8]In November 2016, Trump agreed to pay $25 million to settle the litigation.[7]In 1985, New York City brought a lawsuit against Trump for allegedly using tactics to force out tenants of 100 Central Park South,[17]which he intended to demolish together with the building next door. After ten years in court, the two sides negotiated a deal allowing the building to stand as condominiums.[18]In 1988, the Justice Department sued Trump for violating procedures related to public notifications when buying voting stock in a company related to his attempted takeovers of Holiday Corporation and Bally Manufacturing Corporation in 1986. On April 5, 1988, Trump agreed to pay $750,000 to settle the civil penalties of the antitrust lawsuit.[19]In late 1990, Trump was sued for $2 million by a business analyst for defamation, and Trump settled out of court.[20]Briefly before Trump's Taj Mahal opened in April 1990, the analyst had said that the project would fail by the end of that year. Trump threatened to sue the analyst's firm unless the analyst recanted or was fired. The analyst refused to retract the statements, and his firm fired him for ostensibly unrelated reasons.[21]Trump Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy in November 1990, the first of several such bankruptcies.[22]After, the NYSE ordered the firm to compensate the analyst $750,000; the analyst did not release the details of his settlement with Trump.[23]In 1991, Trump sued the manufacturers of a helicopter that crashed in 1989, killing three executives of his New Jersey hotel casino business.[24]The helicopter fell 2,800 feet after the main four-blade rotor and tail rotor broke off the craft, killing Jonathan Benanav, an executive of Trump Plaza, and two others: Mark Grossinger Etess, president of Trump Taj Mahal, and Stephen F. Hyde, chief executive of the Atlantic City casinos.[25][26][27]One of the defendants was owned by the Italian government, providing a basis for removing it to federal court, where the case was dismissed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld the dismissal in 1992, and the Supreme Court denied Trump's petition to hear the case in the same year.[28]In 1991, Trump Plaza was fined $200,000 by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission for moving African American and female employees from craps tables in order to accommodate high roller Robert LiButti, a mob figure and alleged John Gotti associate, who was said to fly into fits of racist rage when he was on losing streaks.[29]There is no indication that Trump was ever questioned in that investigation, he was not held personally liable, and Trump denies even knowing what LiButti looked like.[29]In 1991, one of Trump's casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was found guilty of circumventing state regulations about casino financing when Donald Trump's father bought $3.5 million in chips that he had no plans to gamble. Trump Castle was forced to pay a $30,000 fine under the settlement, according to New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement Director Jack Sweeney. Trump was not disciplined for the illegal advance on his inheritance, which was not confiscated.[30]In 1993, Donald Trump sued Jay Pritzker, a Chicago financier and Trump's business partner since 1979 on the Grand Hyatt hotel. Trump alleged that Pritzker overstated earnings in order to collect excessive management fees.[31]In 1994, Pritzker sued Trump for violating their agreement by, among other ways, failing to remain solvent.[32]The two parties ended the feud in 1995 in a sealed settlement, in which Trump retained some control of the hotel and Pritzker would receive reduced management fees and pay Trump's legal expenses.[33]In 1993, Vera Coking sued Trump and his demolition contractor for damage to her home during construction of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.[34]In 1997, she dropped the suit against Trump and settled with his contractor for $90,000.[35]Coking had refused to sell her home to Trump and ultimately won a 1998 Supreme Court decision that prevented Atlantic City from using eminent domain to condemn her property.[36][37]In 1996, Trump was sued by more than 20 African-American residents of Indiana who charged that Trump reneged on promises to hire 70% of his work force from the minority community for his riverboat casino on Lake Michigan. The suit also charged that he hadn't honored his commitments to steer sufficient contracts to minority-owned businesses in Gary, Indiana. The suit was eventually dismissed due to procedural and jurisdiction issues.[38][39]In the late 1990s, Donald Trump and rival Atlantic City casino owner Stephen Wynn engaged in an extended legal conflict during the planning phase of new casinos Wynn had proposed to build. Both owners filed lawsuits against one another and other parties, including the State of New Jersey, beginning with Wynn's antitrust accusation against Trump.[40][41]After two years in court, Wynn's Mirage casino sued Trump in 1999 alleging that his company had engaged in a conspiracy to harm Mirage and steal proprietary information, primarily lists of wealthy Korean gamblers. In response, Trump's attorneys claimed that Trump's private investigator dishonored his contract by working as a "double agent" for the Mirage casino by secretly taping conversations with Trump. All the cases were settled at the same time on the planned day of an evidentiary hearing in court in February 2000, which was never held.[42]Personal and sexualIn 1992, Trump sued ex-wife Ivana Trump for not honoring a gag clause in their divorce agreement by disclosing facts about him in her best-selling book. Trump won the gag order.[43][44][45]The divorce was granted on grounds that Ivana claimed Donald Trump's treatment of her was "cruel and inhuman treatment".[46][47]Years later, Ivana said that she and Donald "are the best of friends".[48]A sexual assault claim from 1994 for child rape was filed against Trump on October 14, 2016,[49]a case that was dropped and refiled, remaining in suspension as of November 4, 2016.[50]In April 1997, Jill Harth Houraney filed a $125,000,000 lawsuit against Trump for sexual harassment in 1993, claiming he "'groped' her under her dress and told her he wanted to make her his 'sex slave'". Harth voluntarily withdrew the suit when her husband settled a parallel case. Trump has called the allegations "meritless".[51][52]Lawsuits 2000–2009[edit]In 2000, Donald Trump paid $250,000 to settle fines related to charges brought by New York State Lobbying Commission director David Grandeau. Trump was charged with circumventing state law to spend $150,000 lobbying against government approval of plans to construct an Indian-run casino in the Catskills, which would have diminished casino traffic to Trump's casinos in Atlantic City.[53][54]From 2000 on, Trump tried to partner with a German venture in building a "Trump Tower Europe" in Germany. The company founded for this, "TD Trump Deutschland AG" was dissolved in 2003, several lawsuits following in the years thereafter.[55]In 2001, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought a financial-reporting case against Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc., alleging that the company had committed several "misleading statements in the company's third-quarter 1999 earnings release". Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Inc. consented to the Commission's cease-and-desist order, said the culprit had been dismissed, and that Trump had personally been unaware of the matter.[56][57][58]Trump sued Leona Helmsley,[59]and Helmsley counter-sued Trump[60]due to contentions regarding ownership and operation of the Empire State Building. In 2002, Trump announced that he and his Japanese business partners, were selling the Empire State Building to partners of his rival Leona Helmsley.[61][62]In 2003, the city of Stuttgart denied TD Trump Deutschland AG, a Trump Organization subsidiary, the permission to build a planned tower due to questions over its financing. Trump Deutschland sued the city of Stuttgart, and lost. In 2004 Trump's German corporate partner brought suit against the Trump Organization for failure to pay back a EUR 200 million pre-payment as promised. In 2005, the German state attorney prosecuted Trump Deutschland and its partners for accounting fraud.[63][64][65]In 2004, Donald Trump sued Richard T. Fields in Broward County Circuit Court (in Florida); Fields was once Trump's business partner in the casino business, but had recently become a successful casino developer in Florida apart from Trump. Fields counter-sued Trump in Florida court. Trump alleged that Fields misled other parties into believing he still consulted for Trump, and Fields alleged improprieties in Trump's business.[66]The two businessmen agreed in 2008 to drop the lawsuits when Fields agreed to buy Trump Marina in Atlantic City, New Jersey, for $316 million,[67]but the deal was unsettled again in 2009 because Trump resigned his leadership of Trump Entertainment after Fields lowered his bid.[68]Fields never bought the company, which went into bankruptcy about the same time and was sold for $38 million.[69][70]Trump's lawsuit was dismissed after a hearing in 2010.[71]In 2004, the Trump Organization partnered with Bayrock Group on a $200 million hotel and condo project in Fort Lauderdale Beach, to be called Trump International Hotel & Tower. After proceeding for five years, real estate market devaluation stymied the project in 2009 and Trump dissolved his licensing deal, demanding that his name be removed from the building. Soon after this, the project defaulted on a $139 million loan in 2010.[72]Investors later sued the developers for fraud. Trump petitioned to have his name removed from the suit, saying he had only lent his name to the project. However his request was refused since he had participated in advertising for it.[73]The insolvent building project spawned over 10 lawsuits, some of which were still not settled in early 2016.[74]In 2006, the Town of Palm Beach began fining Trump $250 per day for ordinance violations related to his erection of an 80-foot-tall (24 m) flagpole flying a 15 by 25 feet (4.6 by 7.6 m) American flag on his property. Trump sued the town for $25 million, saying that they abridged his free speech, also disputing an ordinance that local businesses be "town-serving". The two parties settled as part of a court-ordered mediation, in which Trump was required to donate $100,000 to veterans' charities. At the same time, the town ordinance was modified allowing Trump to enroll out-of-town members in his Mar-a-Lago social club.[75]Trump International Hotel and Tower in ChicagoAfter the 2008 housing-market collapse, Deutsche Bank attempted to collect $40 million that Donald Trump personally guaranteed against their $640 million loan for Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago. Rather than paying the debt, Trump sued Deutsche Bank for $3 billion for undermining the project and damage to his reputation.[76]Deutsche Bank then filed suit to obtain the $40 million. The two parties settled in 2010 with Deutsche Bank extending the loan term by five years.[77]In 2008, Trump filed a $100 million lawsuit for alleged fraud and civil rights violations[78]against the California city of Rancho Palos Verdes, over thwarted luxury home development and expansion plans upon part of a landslide-prone golf course in the area, which was purchased by Trump in 2002 for $27 million.[78]Trump had previously sued a local school district over land leased from them in the re-branded Trump National Golf Club, and had further angered some local residents by renaming a thoroughfare after himself.[78]The $100 million suit was ultimately withdrawn in 2012 with Trump and the city agreeing to modified geological surveys and permit extensions for some 20 proposed luxury homes (in addition to 36 homes previously approved).[79][80]Trump ultimately opted for a permanent conservation easement instead of expanded housing development on the course's driving range.[81]In 2009, Donald Trump sued a law firm he had used, Morrison Cohen, for $5 million for mentioning his name and providing links to related news articles on its website. This lawsuit followed a lawsuit by Trump alleging overcharging by the law firm, and a countersuit by Morrison Cohen seeking unpaid legal fees.[82]The suit was dismissed in a 15-page ruling by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten, who ruled that the links to news articles concerned "matters of public interest."[83]In 2009, Trump was sued by investors who had made deposits for condos in the canceled Trump Ocean Resort Baja Mexico.[84]The investors said that Trump misrepresented his role in the project, stating after its failure that he had been little more than a spokesperson for the entire venture, disavowing any financial responsibility for the debacle.[85]Investors were informed that their investments would not be returned due to the cancellation of construction.[84]In 2013, Trump settled the lawsuit with more than one hundred prospective condo owners for an undisclosed amount.[86]Lawsuits 2010–presentConstruction and property law matters[edit]In 2011, Donald Trump sued Scotland, alleging that it built the Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm after assuring him it would not be built. He had recently built a golf course there and planned to build an adjacent hotel. Trump lost his suit, with the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom unanimously ruling in favor of the Scottish government in 2015.[87][88]In 2013, 87-year-old Jacqueline Goldberg alleged that Trump cheated her in a condominium sale by bait-and-switch when she was purchasing properties at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.[89]In 2015, Trump initiated a $100 million lawsuit against Palm Beach County claiming that officials, in a "deliberate and malicious" act, pressured the FAA to direct air traffic to the Palm Beach International Airport over his Mar-a-Lago estate, because he said the airplanes damaged the building and disrupted its ambiance.[90]Trump had previously sued the county twice over airport noise; the first lawsuit, in 1995, ended with an agreement between Trump and the county; Trump's second lawsuit, in 2010, was dismissed.[90]Trump is suing the town of Ossining, New York, over the property tax valuation on his 147-acre (59 ha) Trump National Golf Club Westchester, located in Briarcliff Manor's portion of the town, which Trump purchased for around $8 million at a foreclosure sale in the 1990s and to which he claimed, at the club's opening, to have added $45 million in facility improvements.[91]Although Trump stated in his 2015 FEC filing that the property was worth at least $50 million, his lawsuit seeks a $1.4 million valuation on the property, which includes a 75,000-square-foot clubhouse, five overnight suites, and permission to build 71 condominium units,[91]in an effort to shave $424,176 from his annual local property tax obligations.(91A) Trump had to pay nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees in Doral painter’s lawsuit related to unpaid bills brought by a local paint store against the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, ordered the billionaire politician’s company to pay the Doral-based mom-and-pop shop nearly $300,000 in attorney’s fees. All because, according to the lawsuit, Trump allegedly tried to stiff The Paint Spot on its last payment of $34,863 on a $200,000 contract for paint used in the renovation of the home of golf’s famed Blue Monster two years prior.[92]Trump filed the action after separately being sued by Briarcliff Manor for "intentional and illegal modifications" to a drainage system that caused more than $238,000 in damage to the village's library, public pool, and park facilities during a 2011 storm.[92]In October 2016, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that Trump, together with two principals of a connected developer, could be sued for various claims, including oppression, collusion and breach of fiduciary duties, in relation to his role in the marketing of units in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Toronto, Canada.[93]A subsequent application for leave to appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada in March 2017.[94]Also in October 2016, JCF Capital ULC (a private firm that had bought the construction loan on the building) announced that it was seeking court approval under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to have the building sold in order to recoup its debt, which then totaled $301 million.[95]The court allowed for its auction[96]which took place in March 2017, but no bidders, apart from one stalking horse offer, took part.[97]Defamation mattersAlso in 2011, an appellate court upheld a New Jersey Superior Court judge's decision dismissing Trump's $5 billion defamation lawsuit against author Timothy L. O'Brien, who had reported in his book, TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald (2005), that Trump's true net worth was really between $150 and $250 million. Trump had reportedly told O'Brien he was worth billions and, in 2005, had publicly stated such.[98]Trump said that the author's alleged underestimation of his net worth was motivated by malice and had cost him business deals and damage to his reputation.[99]The appellate court, however, ruled against Trump, citing the consistency of O'Brien's three confidential sources.[100]In 2014, the former Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin ultimately settled a $5 million arbitration judgment against her, having been sued by Trump after alleging that the Miss USA 2012 pageant results were rigged. Monnin wrote on her Facebook page that another contestant told her during a rehearsal that she had seen a list of the top five finalists, and when those names were called in their precise order, Monnin realized the pageant election process was suspect, compelling Monnin to resign her Miss Pennsylvania title. The Trump Organization's lawyer said that Monnin's allegations had cost the pageant a lucrative British Petroleum sponsorship deal and threatened to discourage women from entering Miss USA contests in the future.[101]According to Monnin, testimony from the Miss Universe Organization and Ernst & Young revealed that the top 15 finalists were selected by pageant directors regardless of preliminary judges' scores.[102]As part of the settlement, Monnin was not required to retract her original statements.[101]On January 17, 2017, Summer Zervos, represented by attorney Gloria Allred, filed a defamation suit against President-Elect Donald Trump for claiming that she had lied in her public sexual assault allegations against him.[103]Financial mattersIn July 2011, New York firm ALM Unlimited filed a lawsuit against Trump, who ended payments to the company in 2008 after nearly three years. ALM was hired in 2003 to seek offers from clothing companies for a Trump fashion line, and had arranged a meeting between Trump and PVH, which licensed the Trump name for dress shirts and neckwear. ALM, which had received over $300,000, alleged in the lawsuit that Trump's discontinuation of payments was against their initial agreement. In pre-trial depositions, Trump and two of his business officials – attorney George H. Ross and executive vice president of global licensing Cathy Glosser – gave contradictory statements regarding whether ALM was entitled to payments. Trump, who felt that ALM had only a limited role in the deal between him and PVH, said "I have thousands of checks that I sign a week, and I don't look at very many of the checks; and eventually I did look, and when I saw them (ALM) I stopped paying them because I knew it was a mistake or somebody made a mistake."[104]In January 2013, a judge ordered that the case go to trial, after Trump and ALM failed to settle the lawsuit.[105]During the trial in April 2013, Trump said that ALM's role in the PVH agreement was insubstantial, stating that Regis Philbin was the one who recommended PVH to him. Trump's attorney, Alan Garten, said ALM was not legally entitled to any money.[105][106][107]The judge ruled in favor of Trump later that month because a valid contract between him and ALM was never created.[107]Trump University litigationMain article: Trump University § Allegations of impropriety and lawsuitsIn 2013, in a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Trump was accused of defrauding more than 5,000 people of $40 million for the opportunity to learn Trump's real estate investment techniques in a for-profit training program, Trump University, which operated from 2005 to 2011.[108][109][110]Trump ultimately stopped using the term "University" following a 2010 order from New York regulators, who called Trump's use of the word "misleading and even illegal"; the state had previously warned Trump in 2005 to drop the term or not offer seminars in New York.[111][112][113]Although Trump has claimed a 98% approval rating on course evaluations, former students recounted high-pressure tactics from instructors seeking the highest possible ratings, including threats of withholding graduation certificates,[114]and more than 2,000 students had sought and received course refunds before the end of their paid seminars.[114]In a separate class action civil suit against Trump University in mid-February 2014, a San Diego federal judge allowed claimants in California, Florida, and New York to proceed;[115]a Trump counterclaim, alleging that the state Attorney General's investigation was accompanied by a campaign donation shakedown, was investigated by a New York ethics board and dismissed in August 2015.[116]Trump filed a $1 million defamation suit against former Trump University student Tarla Makaeff, who had spent about $37,000 on seminars, after she joined the class action lawsuit and publicized her classroom experiences on social media.[85]Trump University was later ordered by a U.S. District Judge in April 2015 to pay Makaeff and her lawyers $798,774.24 in legal fees and costs.[85][117]Breach of contract matters2013]In 2013 Trump sued comedian Bill Maher for $5 million for breach of contract.[118]Maher had appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and had offered to pay $5 million to a charity if Trump produced his birth certificate to prove that Trump's mother had not mated with an orangutan. This was said by Maher in response to Trump having previously challenged Obama to produce his birth certificate, and offering $5 million payable to a charity of Obama's choice, if Obama produced his college applications, transcripts, and passport records.[119][120]Trump produced his birth certificate and filed a lawsuit after Maher was not forthcoming, claiming that Maher's $5 million offer was legally binding. "I don't think he was joking," Trump said. "He said it with venom."[119]Trump withdrew his lawsuit against the comedian after eight weeks.[121]2014[edit]In 2014, model Alexia Palmer filed a civil suit against Trump Model Management for promising a $75,000 annual salary but paying only $3,380.75 for three years' work. Palmer, who came to the US at age 17 from Jamaica under the H-1B visa program in 2011,[122]claimed to be owed more than $200,000. Palmer contended that Trump Model Management charged, in addition to a management fee, "obscure expenses" from postage to limousine rides that consumed the remainder of her compensation. Palmer alleged that Trump Model Management promised to withhold only 20% of her net pay as agency expenses, but after charging her for those "obscure expenses", ended up taking 80%.[123]Trump attorney Alan Garten claimed the lawsuit is "bogus and completely frivolous".[124][125]Palmer filed a class-action lawsuit against the modeling agency with similar allegations.[126]The case was dismissed from U.S. federal court in March 2016, in part because Palmer's immigration status, via H1-B visa sponsored by Trump, required labor complaints to be filed through a separate process.[123][127]2015[edit]In 2015, Trump sued Univision, demanding $500 million for breach of contract and defamation when they dropped their planned broadcast of the Miss USA pageant. The network said that the decision was made because of Trump's "insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants".[128]Trump settled the lawsuit with Univision CEO Randy Falco out of court.[129]In July 2015, Trump filed a $10 million lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court for breach of contract against Spanish celebrity chef José Andrés, claiming that he backed out of a deal to open the flagship restaurant at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.[130][131]Andrés replied that Trump's lawsuit was "both unsurprising and without merit"[132]and filed an $8 million counterclaim against a Trump Organization subsidiary.[131][133]Also in July 2015, Chef Geoffrey Zakarian also withdrew from the Washington, D.C., project with Andrés in the wake of Trump's comments on Mexican illegal immigrants, and is expected to lose his own $500,000 restaurant lease deposit as a result.[132]Trump denounced and then sued Zakarian in August 2015 for a sum "in excess of $10 million" for lost rent and other damages.[134]Trump's lawsuit called Zakarian's offense at his remarks "curious in light of the fact that Mr. Trump's publicly shared views on immigration have remained consistent for many years, and Mr. Trump's willingness to frankly share his opinions is widely known".[134][135]Disputes with both chefs were eventually settled in April 2017.[136]In 2015, restaurant workers at Trump SoHo filed a lawsuit that from 2009 to at least the time of the filing, gratuities added to customers' checks were illegally withheld from employees. The Trump Organization has responded that the dispute is between the employees and their employer, a third-party contractor. Donald Trump has been scheduled to testify in court on September 1, 2016.[137][138]2018[edit]In 2018, Noel Cintron, the personal driver for Donald Trump before he became the President of the United States, filed a lawsuit Cintron v Trump Organization LLC with the Supreme Court of the State of New York (Manhattan). The lawsuit claims that during his 25-year employment by Trump, he was not compensated for overtime and the second time his salary was raised he was induced to surrender his health insurance, an action which saved Trump approximately $17,866 per year.[139]The lawsuit seeks $178,200 of overtime back pay, plus $5,000 in penalties that are seen under the New York State Labor Law.[140]Assault claims[edit]In September 2015, five men who had demonstrated outside of a Trump presidential campaign event at Trump Tower in New York City sued Donald Trump, alleging that Trump's security staff punched one of them. They also allege that Trump's security guards had been advised by city police that they were permitted to protest there. Several people videotaped the incident.[141][142]In June 2015, the Culinary Workers Union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging that the owners of Trump Hotel Las Vegas "violated the federally protected rights of workers to participate in union activities" and engaged in "incidents of alleged physical assault, verbal abuse, intimidation, and threats by management".[143]In October 2015, the Trump Ruffin Commercial and Trump Ruffin Tower I, the owners of Trump Hotel Las Vegas, sued the Culinary Workers Union and another union, alleging that they had knowingly distributed flyers that falsely stated that Donald Trump had stayed at a rival unionized hotel, rather than his own non-unionized hotel, during a trip to Las Vegas.[5][143]Poll watching controversy[edit]On October 31, 2016, a New Jersey federal judge, John Michael Vazquez, ordered the Republican National Committee (RNC) to hand over all communications with the Trump campaign related to poll watching and voter fraud. He asked for testimony and documents relating to Kellyanne Conway, RNC officials Ronna Romney McDaniel of Michigan, and Rob Gleason from Pennsylvania.[144]It is claimed Gleason, McDaniel, and Roger Stone recruited poll watchers to check for voter fraud. The state Democratic parties of Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Ohio filed lawsuits against Trump for encouraging illegal voter intimidation. The states' Democratic parties are also suing their respective Republican party counterparts, along with Roger Stone, who is allegedly recruiting poll watchers and organizing ballot security efforts in a number of states. Stone runs the group "Stop the Steal." It claims Trump supporters yelled at voters outside Las Vegas area polling places when they said they weren't voting for the Republican nominee, and that Stone is asking supporters to conduct an illegitimate "exit polling" initiative aimed at intimidating voters of color.Pat McDonald, the director of Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Ohio, reported that "Trump supporters have already visited the county elections board identifying themselves as poll observers, even though they did not appear to be credentialed as poll observers as required under Ohio law." Election officials have expressed concern about "instability on Election Day," one lawsuit claims, and discussed the possibility of bringing police to polling sites to address conflicts. In Clark County of Nevada, a lawsuit claims: "A Trump supporter harassed and intimidated multiple voters outside of the Albertson's supermarket early voting location on Lake Mead Boulevard, repeatedly asking voters for whom they were voting, and then yelling at them belligerently and attempting to keep them from entering the voting location when they stated they were not voting for Donald Trump." When poll staffers told the Trump supporters to stop harassing voters, "the Trump supporter told poll workers that he had 'a right to say anything he wanted to the voters.'" Poll staffers called police, and the Trump supporter left. The lawsuit also claims similar incidents took place in neighboring Nye County as well. In Pennsylvania, Murrysville City Councilman Josh Lorenz supposedly posted instructions for the way Clinton supporters could vote online, even though there is no online voting in Pennsylvania. Eight registered electors, mostly from the Philadelphia area, challenged the portion of the state Election Code that prevents poll watchers from observing elections outside of the counties where they live.[145][146][147]In Pompano Beach, Florida, police asked two poll watchers to leave a polling site. Two precinct clerks were also fired for not adhering to policy and training. No arrests were made. No other incidents were reported in South Florida.[148][149]Nevada early voting Latino turnout controversy[edit]On November 8, 2016, Trump filed a lawsuit claiming early voting polling places in Clark County, Nevada, were kept open too late. These precincts had high turnout of Latino voters. Nevada state law explicitly states that polls are to stay open to accommodate eligible voters in line at closing time. Hillary Clinton campaign advisor Neera Tanden says the Trump campaign is trying to suppress Latino voter turnout. A political analyst from Nevada, Jon Ralston tweeted that the Trump lawsuit is "insane" in a state that clearly allows the polls to remains open until everyone in line has voted. Former Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller, posted the statute that states "voting must continue until those voters have voted". Miller said: "If there are people in line waiting to vote at 7 pm, voting must continue until everyone votes.... We still live in America, right?"[150]A Nevada judge denied Trump's request to separate early voting ballots. Judge Gloria Sturman, of the District Court for Clark County Nevada, ruled that County Registrar of Voters Joe P. Gloria was already obligated by state law to maintain the records that the Trump campaign is seeking. Sturman said: "That is offensive to me because it seems to go against the very principle that a vote is secret."[151][152]Diana Orrock, the Republican National Committeewoman for Nevada and a vocal Trump ally, said she was unaware of the lawsuit before Politico contacted her. "I know that the [Clark County] registrar was on TV this morning saying that anybody who's in line was allowed to participate in the voting process until all of them came through," she said. "If that's what they did, I don't have a problem with that ... I don't know that filing a suit's going to accomplish anything." Orrock doubts the lawsuit will have any impact.[153]Lawsuit for inciting violence at March 2016 campaign rally[edit]During a campaign rally on March 1, 2016 in Louisville, Kentucky, Trump repeatedly said "get 'em out of here" while pointing at anti-Trump protesters as they were forcibly escorted out by his supporters. Three protesters say they were repeatedly shoved and punched while Trump pointed at them from the podium, citing widely shared video evidence of the events. They also cited previous statements by Trump about paying the legal bills of supporters who got violent, or suggesting a demonstrator deserved to be "roughed up."[154][155][156][157]The lawsuit accuses Donald Trump of inciting violence against protesters in Louisville, Kentucky. The plaintiffs are Kashiya Nwanguma (21), Molly Shah (36) and Henry Brousseau (17). The suit is against Trump, his campaign, and three Trump supporters (Matthew Heimbach, Alvin Bamberger and an unnamed defendant). One defendant, Bamburger, who was wearing a Veteran's uniform in the video, apologized to the Korean War Veterans Association immediately after the event, writing that he "physically pushed a young woman down the aisle toward the exit" after "Trump kept saying 'get them out, get them out."[154]Trump's attorneys requested to get the case dismissed, arguing he was protected by free speech laws, and wasn't trying to get his supporters to resort to violence.[156][158]They also stated that Trump had no duty to the protesters, and they had assumed the personal risk of injury by deciding to protest at the rally.[154]On Friday, April 1, 2017, Judge David J. Hale in Louisville ruled against the dismissal of a lawsuit, stating there was ample evidence to support that the injuries of the protesters were a "direct and proximate result" of Trump's words and actions. Hale wrote, "It is plausible that Trump's direction to 'get 'em out of here' advocated the use of force," and, "It was an order, an instruction, a command." Hale wrote that the Supreme Court has ruled out some protections for free speech when used to incite violence.[159]Defendant Heimbach requested to dismiss the discussion in the lawsuit about his association with a white nationalist group, and also requested to dismiss discussion of statements he made about how a President Trump would advance the interests of the group. The request was declined, with the judge saying the information could be important for determining punitive damages because they add context.[154]Hale also declined to remove the allegation that Plaintiff Nwanguma, who is African-American, was victim to ethnic, racial and sexist slurs at the rally from the crowd. The judge stated that this context may support claims by the plaintiffs' of incitement and negligence by Trump and the Trump campaign. The judge wrote, "While the words themselves are repulsive, they are relevant to show the atmosphere in which the alleged events occurred."[154]The judge stated that all people have a duty to use care to prevent foreseeable injury. "In sum, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have adequately alleged that their harm was foreseeable and that the Trump Defendants had a duty to prevent it." The case was referred a federal magistrate, Judge H. Brent Brennenstuhl, who will handle preliminary litigation, discovery and settlement efforts.[160]Heimbach filed a separate counterclaim in April 2017, arguing that Trump was "responsible for any injuries" he [Heimbach] "might have inflicted because Mr. Trump directed him and others to take action". Heimbach, "a self-employed landscaper", and a member of the Traditionalist Youth Network, "which advocates separate American 'ethno states', "spends much of his time" online writing "against Jews, gays and immigrants and urging whites to stand up for their race." He wrote his own lawsuit which requested that Trump pay Heimbach's "legal fees, citing a promise Mr. Trump made at an earlier rally to pay legal costs of anyone who removed protesters."[161]Heimbach's "counterclaim" against Trump has "probed the limits of free speech and public protest while confronting the courts with a unique legal argument".[161]On May 5, Trump's lawyers submitted legal filings that argue that Heimbach's "indemnity claim should be dismissed on the same grounds". According to a University of Virginia law professor, Leslie Kendrick, this indemnity or "impleader" case is "highly unusual."[161]New York University's Samuel Issacharoff, a professor of constitutional law, argued that care must be taken to not allow speech, in the "context of a political rally" to be "turned into something that is legally sanctionable."[161]Payments related to alleged affairs[edit]See also: Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal and Karen McDougal § Alleged affair with Donald TrumpAdult film actress Stormy Daniels has alleged that she and Trump had an extramarital affair in 2006, months after the birth of his youngest child.[162]Just before the 2016 presidential election Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was paid $130,000 by Trump's attorney Michael Cohen as part of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), through an LLC set up by Cohen; he says he used his own money for the payment.[163]In February 2018, Daniels filed suit against the LLC asking to be released from the agreement so that she can tell her story. Cohen filed a private arbitration proceeding and obtained a restraining order to keep her from discussing the case.[164]According to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump has denied the allegations.[165]On March 6, 2018, Daniels sued Trump in California Superior Court, claiming among other things that the NDA never came into effect because Trump did not sign it personally.[166]On March 16 Cohen, with Trump's approval, asked for Daniels' suit to be moved from state to federal court, based on the criteria that the parties live in different places and the amount at stake is more than $75,000; Cohen asserted that Daniels could owe $20 million in liquidated damages for breaching the agreement.[167]The filing marked the first time that Trump himself, through his personal attorney, had taken part in the Daniels litigation.[168]In early April 2018, Trump said that he did not know about Cohen paying Daniels, why Cohen had made the payment or where Cohen got the money from.[169]On April 30, Daniels further sued Trump for defamation.[170]In May 2018, Trump's annual financial disclosure revealed that he reimbursed Cohen in 2017 for expenditures related to the Daniels case.[171]In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws, admitting paying hush money of $130,000 and $150,000 "at the direction of a candidate for federal office", to two women who alleged affairs with that candidate, "with the purpose of influencing the election". The figures match sums of payments made to Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.[172][173]American Media, Inc. had reportedly in 2016 bought for $150,000 the rights to a story by McDougal alleging an affair with a married Trump from 2006 which lasted between nine months to a year.[174][175][176]David Pecker (AMI CEO/Chairman and friend of Trump), Dylan Howard (AMI chief content officer) and Allen Weisselberg (chief financial officer of The Trump Organization) were reportedly granted witness immunity in exchange for their testimony regarding the illegal payments.[177][178]In response, Trump said that he only knew about the payments "later on"; Trump also said regarding the payments: "They didn't come out of the campaign, they came from me."[179]The Wall Street Journal reported on November 9, 2018 that federal prosecutors have evidence of Trump’s "central role" in payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal that violated campaign-finance laws.[180][181]Special Counsel investigation[edit]Main article: Special Counsel investigation (2017–present)The Special Counsel investigation is a United States law enforcement investigation of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and any Russian (or other foreign) interference in the election, including exploring any possible links or coordination between Trump's campaign and the Russian government, "and any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."[182]Since May 2017, the investigation has been led by a United States Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, a former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI). Mueller's investigation took over several FBI investigations including those involving former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.It has been noted that Trump has experienced a high turnover with respect to the attorneys handling this matter, as well as a large number of prominent lawyers and law firms publicly declining offers to join Trump's legal team.[183][184]Attorneys known to have been approached include Robert S. Bennett of Hogan Lovells,[185]Paul Clement and Mark Filip, both with Kirkland & Ellis,[186][186]Robert Giuffra Jr. of Sullivan & Cromwell,[185]Theodore B. Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher,[187]and Brendan V. Sullivan Jr. of Williams & Connolly.[186]Other firms with attorneys who have decided not to represent Trump include Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan,[188]Steptoe & Johnson,[188]and Winston & Strawn.[citation needed]Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing were briefly slated to join Trump's legal team, but withdrew their services from Trump in March 2018, citing conflicts of interest.[189]In an article describing the "unique circumstance" of Rudy Giuliani's unpaid leave of absence from Greenberg Traurig while representing Trump, possibly because of "potential conflicts", Christine Simmons said some other law firms may have turned down representing Trump in the Russia case due to "public relations headaches or business and recruitment concerns".[190]Trump has called such views a "Fake News narrative".[191][192]In a National Law Journal article, Ryan Lovelace described how white-collar lawyers must weigh the "risks" and "stigma" of joining the Trump team. He quoted a prominent defense attorney's concerns about "the constant shuffle of attorneys in and out of the president's legal team", and the possibility that an attorney could invest resources and reputation in such representation "only to find yourself on the sidelines a short time later because the president saw someone he liked better on Fox News".[192]The quoted attorney also noted "a stigma to being linked to this president" that might impact business with other clients.[192]A list of other reasons for not wanting to represent Trump is provided by Jill Abramson for The Guardian:The problem for the white-collar defense bar's crème de la crème is that Donald Trump is so blatantly the client from hell. He won't listen. He won't obey instructions. He is headstrong. He is a bully. Sometimes, he doesn't pay his bills. Most of all, it's possible that he isn't capable of discerning fact from fiction. This last foible could get any lawyer who represents him into very deep legal hot water. No one wants to get disbarred for the fame and fortune of representing President Trump. Then there's the justifiable concern over all the unforced legal errors that the defense side, led by Trump himself, has already committed.[193]An Above the Law article states that some law firms have refused to represent the President of the United States because "Donald Trump has somehow turned POTUS into a dog of a client self-respecting lawyers do not want to touch", expressing concern that "[i]f all the good attorneys — the ones with reputations to preserve and ethics to uphold — refuse to represent the president, what's left are the 'bad' attorneys. The ones who don't have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is".[194]Allegations of business links to organized crime[edit]Journalists David Cay Johnston and Wayne Barrett, the latter of whom wrote an unauthorized 1992 Trump biography, have claimed that Trump and his companies did business with New York and Philadelphia families linked to the Italian-American Mafia.[195][196]A reporter for The Washington Post writes, "he was never accused of illegality, and observers of the time say that working with the mob-related figures and politicos came with the territory."[197]Trump helped a financier for the Scarfo family get a casino license, and constructed a casino using firms controlled by Nicodemo Scarfo.[198]Trump also bought real estate from Philadelphia crime family member Salvatore Testa, and bought concrete from companies associated with the Genovese crime family and the Gambino crime family.[195][196][197]Trump Plaza paid a $450,000 fine leveled by the Casino Gaming Commission for giving $1.6 million in rare automobiles to Robert LiButti, the acquaintance of John Gotti already mentioned.[29]Starting in 2003, the Trump Organization worked with Felix Sater, who had a 1998 racketeering conviction for a $40 million Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme, and who had then become an informant against the mafia.[199]Trump's attorney has said that Sater worked with Trump scouting real estate opportunities, but was never formally employed.[200]Use of bankruptcy laws[edit]Trump has never filed for personal bankruptcy, but hotel and casino businesses of his have been declared bankrupt four times between 1991 and 2009 to re-negotiate debt with banks and owners of stock and bonds.[201][202]Because the businesses used Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they were allowed to operate while negotiations proceeded. Trump was quoted by Newsweek in 2011 saying, "I do play with the bankruptcy laws – they're very good for me" as a tool for trimming debt.[82][203]According to a report by Forbes in 2011, the four bankruptcies were the result of over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City: Trump's Taj Mahal (1991), Trump Plaza Hotel (1992), Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts (2004), and Trump Entertainment Resorts (2009).[204][205]Trump said "I've used the laws of this country to pare debt.... We'll have the company. We'll throw it into a chapter. We'll negotiate with the banks. We'll make a fantastic deal. You know, it's like on The Apprentice. It's not personal. It's just business."[206]He indicated that many "great entrepreneurs" do the same.[204]1991[edit]In 1991, Trump Taj Mahal was unable to service its debt and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[206]Forbes indicated that this first bankruptcy was the only one where Trump's personal financial resources were involved. Time, however, maintains that $72 million of his personal money was also involved in a later 2004 bankruptcy.[207]1992[edit]On November 2, 1992, the Trump Plaza Hotel filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Trump lost his 49 percent stake in the luxury hotel to Citibank and five other lenders.[208]In return Trump received more favorable terms on the remaining $550+ million owed to the lenders, and retain his position as chief executive, though he would not be paid and would not have a role in day-to-day operations.[209]1994[edit]Trump Plaza Hotel and Casinoclosed in 2014By 1994, Trump had eliminated a large portion of his $900 million personal debt through sales of his Trump Taj Mahal and Trump Plazaassets,[210]and significantly reduced his nearly $3.5 billion in business debt. Although he lost the Trump Princess yacht and the Trump Shuttle (which he had bought in 1989), he did retain Trump Tower in New York City and control of three casinos in Atlantic City, including Trump's Castle. Trump sold his ownership of West Side Yards (now Riverside South, Manhattan) to Chinese developers including Hong Kong's New World Development, receiving a premium price in exchange for the use and display of the name "Trump" on the buildings.[211]2004[edit]Donald Trump's third corporate bankruptcy was on October 21, 2004, involving Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, the publicly-traded holding company for his three Atlantic City casinos and some others.[212]Trump lost over half of his 56% ownership and gave bondholders stock in exchange for surrendering part of the debt. No longer CEO, Trump retained a role as chairman of the board. In May 2005[213]the company emerged from bankruptcy as Trump Entertainment Resorts Holdings.[214]In his 2007 book, Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life, Trump wrote: "I figured it was the bank's problem, not mine. What the hell did I care? I actually told one bank, 'I told you you shouldn't have loaned me that money. I told you the goddamn deal was no good.'"[215]2009[edit]Trump's fourth corporate bankruptcy occurred in 2009, when Trump and his daughter Ivanka resigned from the board of Trump Entertainment Resorts; four days later the company, which owed investors $1.74 billion against its $2.06 billion of assets, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At that time, Trump Entertainment Resorts had three properties in Atlantic City: Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino (closed in 2014), and Trump Marina (formerly Trump's Castle, sold in 2011). Trump and some investors bought the company back that same year for $225 million. As part of the agreement, Trump withdrew a $100 million lawsuit he had filed against the casino's owners alleging damage to the Trump brand. Trump re-negotiated the debt, reducing by over $1 billion the repayments required to bondholders.[216][217]In 2014, Trump sued his former company to remove his name from the buildings since he no longer ran the company, having no more than a 10% stake; he lost the suit.[218]Trump Entertainment Resorts filed again for bankruptcy in 2014[219]and was purchased by billionaire philanthropist Carl Icahn in 2016, who acquired Trump Taj Mahal in the deal.[220]Campaign contributions[edit]According to a New York state report, Trump circumvented corporate and personal campaign donation limits in the 1980s – although he did not break any laws – by donating money to candidates from 18 different business subsidiaries, rather than giving primarily in his own name.[197][221]Trump told investigators he did so on the advice of his lawyers. He also said the contributions were not to curry favor with business-friendly candidates, but simply to satisfy requests from friends.[197][222]Donald J. Trump Foundation[edit]During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, media began reporting in detail on how the Donald J. Trump Foundation was funded and how Donald Trump used its funds. The Washington Post in particular reported several cases of possible mis-use, self-dealing and possible tax evasion.[18] [19] [20]Regarding the various irregularities in the Trump Foundation, former head of the Internal Revenue Service's Office of Exempt Organizations Division Marc Owens told The Washington Post: "This is so bizarre, this laundry list of issues.... It's the first time I've ever seen this, and I've been doing this for 25 years in the IRS, and 40 years total.[21]When interviewed for the Post's article, Trump spokesperson Boris Epshtein said that Trump did not knowingly violate any tax laws.[18]The office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman investigated the foundation "to make sure it's complying with the laws governing charities in New York."[22]Controversy over tax returns[edit]In October 2016, The New York Times published some tax documents from 1995. These documents indicate that Trump might have evaded paying taxes on as much as 916 million dollars in income at one time. Trump likely gave some of his creditors shares of his failing businesses to avoid taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars he was given in debt relief, which is illegal. Legal scholar Edward Kleinbard of the University of Southern California believes Trump forged tax documents. Trump claimed on his tax returns that he lost money, but did not recognize it in the form of canceled debts. He likely avoided paying 425 million dollars in taxes, says Steven M. Rosenthal, an attorney at the Tax Policy Center. Rosenthal claims he "borrowed other people's money and spent it in spectacular fashion." Trump might have performed a stock-for-debt swap. This would have allowed Trump to avoid paying income taxes for at least 18 years. An audit of Trump's tax returns for 2002 through 2008 was "closed administratively by agreement with the I.R.S. without assessment or payment, on a net basis, of any deficiency." Tax attorneys believe the government may have reduced what Trump was able to claim as a loss without requiring him to pay any additional taxes.[223][224]It is unknown whether the I.R.S. challenged Trump's use of the swaps because he has not released his tax returns. Trump's lawyers advised against Trump using the equity for debt swap, as they believed it to be potentially illegal.[225]Marc Kasowitz, name partner of the Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman firm, wrote a letter threatening The New York Times over publication of the 1995 documents. Kasowitz's action drew attention to the fact that the biglaw firm had done extensive legal work for Donald Trump and his businesses since at least 2001 including also bankrupt casino restructuring.[226]In early 2017, firm member and former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman introduced Pres.-elect Trump's nominee for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension committee.[227]Destruction of documents[edit]In June 2016, a USA Today article reported that Donald Trump and his companies have been deleting emails and other documents on a large scale,[228]including evidence in lawsuits, sometimes in defiance of court orders and under subpoena since as early as 1973.[229][230][231]In October 2016, Kurt Eichenwald published new research findings in Newsweek. The findings were first published by Paul Singer[232]on June 13, 2016[233]and gained larger attention[234][235]after a new report in Newsweek on October 31, 2016. According to Newsweek, Trump and his companies "hid or destroyed thousands of documents" involving several court cases from as early as 1973."Over the course of decades, Donald Trump's companies have systematically destroyed or hidden thousands of emails, digital records and paper documents demanded in official proceedings, often in defiance of court orders.... In each instance, Trump and entities he controlled also erected numerous hurdles that made lawsuits drag on for years, forcing courtroom opponents to spend huge sums of money in legal fees as they struggled—sometimes in vain—to obtain records."— Kurt Eichenwald, Donald Trump's Companies Destroyed Emails in Defiance of Court Orders Newsweek, October 31, 2016In 1973 Trump, his father and their company were in court for civil charges for refusing to rent apartments to African Americans. After their lawyers had delayed court requests for documents for several months, Trump, then being under subpoena, said his company had destroyed corporate records of the past six months "for saving space". In a court case beginning in 2005 against Power Plant Entertainment, LLC, an affiliate of real estate developer Cordish Cos., it was revealed that Trump's companies had deleted the data requested by court.[236]Cordish Cos. had built two American Indian[237]casinos in Florida under the Hard Rock brand and Donald Trump accused them of cheating him out of that deal. Nonetheless, Trump's lawyers had refused to instruct workers to keep all records related to the case during litigation.[229]Trump had established a procedure to delete all data from their employees' computers every year at least since 2003,[234]despite knowing at least since 2001 that he might want to file a lawsuit. Even after the lawsuit was filed, Trump Hotelsdisposed of a computer of a key witness without having made a backup of the data. A former general counsel of the Trump casino unit confirmed that all data were deleted from nearly all companies' computers annually. Trump and his lawyers claimed they were not keeping records and digital data although it was revealed that Trump had launched his own high-speed internet provider in 1998 and an IBM Domino server had been installed for emails and digital files in 1999.[229][235]