What Trump should learn from Oscar Wilde's doomed lawsuit
As President Trump flails about in a futile effort to change the narrative about his friendship with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his explanations have only drawn more attention to their connection.
Ironically, Trump’s resort to strong-arm litigation will likely lead to yet more damaging disclosures. History tells us why.
Over a century before Trump’s “powerhouse” defamation case against the Wall Street Journal for publishing an article about his supposed birthday note to Epstein, another outsize figure came to grief by filing an ill-advised libel action that he knew was false.
In 1895, the poet and playwright Oscar Wilde was the most renowned literary figure in the English-speaking world. By sheer force of personality, Wilde led an artistic movement that defied convention, offended propriety and created an esthetic revolution.
Then he wrecked it all by subjecting himself to a relentless cross-examination about his then-scandalous intimate life in a case he could not win.
Trump appears to be making the same mistake. His lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal can expose him to extensive questioning under oath about escapades he has kept mostly under wraps.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump sent a risqué birthday note to Epstein, in 2003, featuring a sketch of a naked young woman. Trump immediately issued a sharp denial, calling it “fake news” and declaring “I never wrote a picture in my life.”
The president’s bluster was quickly disproven when reporters found verified drawings by Trump, at least four of which were publicly auctioned during his first term. The defamation case against the Wall Street Journal, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, promises to reveal even more.
Parties in federal cases are required to sit for depositions under oath. The scope of inquiry is extremely broad, compelling disclosure of any information “relevant to any party's claim or defense,” even if it would be inadmissible at trial.
The expansive allegations in Trump’s complaint open the relevance door about as widely as possible, which makes the whole story of his association with Epstein available for questioning.
Trump will have to fully describe everything they did together, where and when they did it, and in whose company — with names and details.
Trump cannot object based on relevance, because he raised these very issues in his own lawsuit.
He cannot claim memory failure, at least for the many events documented in photographs (and others that defense counsel may well dig up). He cannot hide behind presidential immunity, which does not apply in civil cases.
Such were the circumstances that destroyed Wilde.
Today, Wilde would be described as gay or bisexual, although neither term was current in the late 19th century. Wilde’s lover was young Lord Alfred Douglas, known as Bosie, whose father was the brutish Marquess of Queensberry, author of boxing’s modern rules.
Queensberry hounded Wilde in public and private, branding him a “posing" sodomite. Although the accusation was true in its way (minus the invective), Wilde believed he had no option but to sue Queensberry for libel.
He retained the prominent barrister, Sir Edward Clarke, who asked him to swear “that there is not and has never been any foundation” for Queensberry’s accusation. Wilde falsely replied that the charges were absolutely “groundless.”
It was a pretense Wilde could not maintain on the witness stand. His credibility was shredded by Queensberry’s counsel, Sir Edward Carson, who would later become attorney general of England.
Carson confronted Wilde with his own words of love for young men, taken from his published writings and private letters to Bosie. Worse, he produced witness after witness, tracked down by private investigators, who testified to Wilde’s then-illegal sexual activities.
Recognizing the damage to his client, and embarrassed by his own credulousness, Wilde’s attorney attempted to withdraw the case. But the judge wouldn’t have it, and Queensberry was exonerated.
That ended the libel case, but it was not the end of Wilde’s trials. He was indicted for the crime of “gross indecency,” based on Queensberry’s evidence.
Ultimately convicted, Wilde was sentenced to two years at hard labor. Emerging a broken man, he died three years later.
Both Wilde and Trump believed themselves invulnerable to conventional standards of respectability and decorum. Wilde proved disastrously wrong, while Trump has succeeded beyond all expectations.
Both men somehow convinced attorneys to file outrageous lawsuits. Wilde’s case was defeated in the most torturous way.
Trump’s remains pending, although it seems almost impossible, given the photographic and other evidence, for him to prove his allegation that he was never Epstein’s “pal.”
We know that Trump’s name appears multiple times in the Justice Department’s Epstein files, as he was informed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. Thanks to his improvident lawsuit, he may now have to explain that under oath.
After 130 years of social progress, we can understand and sympathize with Wilde’s dilemma, although it led him to perjury.
Trump deserves no such indulgence. His claim that the Wall Street Journal “concocted” a story is all but certain to be proven false and irresponsible. He won’t face personal ruin, as did Wilde, but perhaps he will be exposed as one of Epstein’s active or passive enablers.
History does repeat itself. First as tragedy, then as farce.
Steven Lubet is the Williams Memorial Professor Emeritus at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.