President Donald Trump’s many lawsuits have a tendency to implode during the discovery phase, so much so that conservative commentator Rick Wilson has dubbed it one of his “rules” of politics, and the latest bombshell revelations from Capital One show exactly why.
Wilson, a vocal conservative critic of Trump for many years, was the latest guest on commentator Molly Jong-Fast’s podcast, “Fast Politics.” During the discussion, the pair discussed the stunning new revelations emerging from Trump’s lawsuit against Capital One.
Capital One Financial is among the institutions that Trump has sued, alleging that they “debanked” him and his companies for political reasons in 2021 following his involvement in the Jan. 6 riots. This week, however, Capital One disclosed that it shuttered around 300 Trump Organization accounts after a months-long investigation into signs that they were connected to money laundering. The company is now asking a federal judge in Florida to dismiss the case, arguing that its new disclosures “make clear that Capital One closed Plaintiffs’ accounts for anti-money laundering (‘AML’) reasons.”
Per NPR, the company said that the decision to close the accounts followed “months of analysis and a careful review,” though it is not clear if the Trump Organization was given notice and time to explain the signs of money laundering. It is also not clear if any other banks raised similar alarms, and the Trump Organization has not responded to any outlet’s request for comment so far.
Digging into the development during his “Fast Politics” appearance, Wilson said that this summed up “the performative nature of all Trump lawsuits,” and suggested the creation of a “third Wilson rule,” after his first two rules about politics: “Everything Trump touches dies” and “Everyone hates Ted Cruz.”
“And the third one is no Trump lawsuit survives discovery,” Wilson explained. “Because now that the bank is going to say, OK, well, if you want us to show why we think you were money laundering, we will reveal in court why we think you were money laundering. And Trump’s people, I promise you, they’re going to go… ‘nevermind.'”
Wilson continued: “It is like all these cases … when the rubber hits the road, when the facts matter, when the discovery is going to embarrass the living hell out of them, right? You know, it’s why they dropped the charges against the Olympian this week after he allegedly personally destroyed the Reflecting Pool. It’s why they just can’t hold up on these B.S. defamation cases, like against the BBC and other things. There’s just a sense that these lawsuits are like a lottery ticket for him. Maybe sometimes somebody will just collapse and go, okay, we’ll give you money.”