Thursday, March 08, 2018

Maybe they just need more practice


Josh Marshall points out the agreement between Trump, Daniels, and "EC" lists four persons who are in possession of "property" Trump doesn't want disclosed.

Josh is right, it's a remarkably badly drafted portion of the contract.  "PP has directly or indirectly disclosed...any of the Property to any Third Party...other than the following persons or entities," the Agreement reads, and then lists four persons, two of whom Josh can account for, two of whom are mysteries. 

According to that tweet above, the mystery may be solved:  April Ryan is apparently the woman who accused Trump, because Gina Rodriguez hasn't made any such accusation, and JMM has her reasons for being listed in the Agreement.  Which can only mean there are other shoes to drop here, and if the agreement can't be enforced against Daniels, there's no constraint on Ryan under this agreement (maybe she has a separate agreement with Trump, but that's another matter).

I'll just go on to note the agreement says "PP shall not be responsible for any subsequent public disclosure....and any such disclosure shall be deemed a breach of this agreement by PP."  So which is it?  Is PP not responsible for subsequent disclosures?  If so, how is any such disclosure a breach of the agreement, even if it's made by a third party?

I left out the middle bit, which tries to identify who cannot disclose what, but makes a complete hash of it.  I still remember the basic rules of contract construction, i.e., what rules the court follows to straighten out what the parties meant v. what the document says, and this clause seems particularly unenforceable.  It's pretty clear the "not" in that sentence belongs in the sentence quoted earlier (where "PP has directly. etc."), and does not belong in this sentence.  But then what does this mean?

(a) attributable directly to each of them; and/or (b) not disclosed hereinabove as a previously disclosed PP Disclosed Individual/Entities [that's a defined term, it refers to the list of persons JMM it talking about], and any such disclosure, [etc.].
I can't make head or tails of that.   (b) seems to hold PP accountable for disclosing all persons who should be covered by the agreement, but (a) makes no sense unless you remove the "not" from "PP shall not be responsible."  Except that's not what the document says, and since Trump and EC brought this document to Daniels, it has to be construed against them (i.e., it's their contract, they should have proofread it better).  And with the "not" there, it's a meaningless phrase.

This thing really is a joke.

No comments:

Post a Comment