Lawsuits over Trump business threaten to tie up presidency

Just last week, the president-elect sat for a deposition in a lawsuit involving his Washington hotel , and he is still tied up in legal disputes that are to proceed after Inauguration Day.

Given the heated political climate, Eisen said Trump could end up on the other end of a strategy that one of his advisers, billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, used in a civil privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media LLC : bankrolling someone else's lawsuit to further a personal or political agenda.

The president-elect owns or controls some 500 companies involved in hotels, golf resorts, office buildings and condominium towers in several countries including Scotland, Ireland, Dubai and Indonesia.

Prakash said Trump's businesses could also be tempting legal targets because potential plaintiffs may think he would be more likely to settle cases — as he did with Trump University fraud lawsuits in the weeks after the election.

Trump has decided to pursue two lawsuits against chefs— Jose Andres and Geoffrey Zakarian— who pulled out of restaurant deals in his new Washington hotel after the candidate made disparaging comments during his campaign about Mexican immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Another tactic that may haunt Trump is his use of courts or private arbitration to attack the media, silence his critics and keep employees from talking.

Throughout his campaign, Trump routinely threatened legal action against news outlets, including The Associated Press, for coverage he claimed was unfair.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman launched an investigation of The Donald J. Trump Foundation last year after news organizations revealed that Trump used the charity to settle lawsuits, make an illegal $25,000 political contribution to a group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and purchase items such as a painting of himself that was displayed at one of his properties.

Trump does not face the potential for criminal charges in that investigation, but he or the foundation could face fines and other civil penalties.