President Donald Trump is again trying to stop the release of unseen footage from his reality television show, The Apprentice . As reported by Deadline , Trump family lawyer Joanna Hendon sent a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Lorna Schofield on Monday in hopes of keeping the MGM-owned footage in the dark.
“The Court should stay all proceedings before it pending Defendants’ appeal from the Court’s denial of their Motion to Compel Arbitration, because fundamental fairness requires it,” the letter reads.
According to the letter, the lawsuit — which has been going on for eight months — is a “third-party discovery campaign” that is “forbidden” by the arbitration provision they allegedly agreed to.
Hendon also claimed there is “prejudice” against the defendants — which include Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump — that she called “obvious and incalculable.”
The letter comes just one week after Schofield ordered the video to go public and shot down Trump and MGM’s attempt to deal with the lawsuit in private. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter , the lawsuit allegedly incriminates Trump in a marketing scam that the president’s family pushed on people. The group is accused of convincing people to become independent business owners in ACN Opportunity without revealing their paid endorsements from the company.
Nevertheless, Hendon argues that the footage is not of public interest.
“The public interest also favors a stay. This litigation concerns a private dispute that does not directly implicate any public entity or public interest that might counsel against a stay.”
The plaintiffs’ lead lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, told Deadline the letter is another in a long line of attempts to stop the lawsuit from proceeding. She also noted the court has already reasoned there is “no basis” for arbitration at this time in the process.
“As a result, like the others from the past, we believe that this effort too will fail.”
The lawsuit comes after years of rumors that The Apprentice footage contains evidence of Trump using inappropriate language. According to former contestants, including Penn Jillette and Tom Arnold, Trump regularly made “racially insensitive” and chauvinist comments on the set.
As reported by The Inquisitr , ex- Apprentice staffer Noel Casler has accused Trump of being a long-time user of Adderall on multiple occasions. During the president’s televised White House speech in February, Casler claimed Trump was high and noted his constant sniffing. He made similar accusations after Trump’s speech on January 8, in which the president addressed the Iranian missile attack on U.S. troops stationed at an Iraqi air base.