How a Marvel Comics Case Could Bring Down Donald Trump

A previous lawsuit involving a one-time Marvel Entertainment CEO could spell disaster for Donald Trump in an unlikely twist, as the former president fights a $250 million civil fraud case in New York City.

The 2024 presidential hopeful has in recent weeks been locked in an ongoing trial, in which he and his Trump Organization stand accused of having given misleading valuations for property they own to secure more favorable bank loans and tax arrangements. The case was brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

In September, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump, his adult sons and the Trump Organization had committed fraud. Republican election frontrunner Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, branding the case against him a "witch hunt."

Engoron is currently deliberating on six other accusations, including falsifying business records and insurance fraud. As the case is civil, there is no prospect of Trump, or anyone else involved, being sentenced to prison.

Trump's adult sons—Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.—are also named in the lawsuit. Due to her involvement within The Trump Organization, which she left in 2017, the former president's daughter Ivanka Trump was initially named as a defendant. She was later removed from the list of defendants under the statute of limitations.

However, Ivanka Trump's past involvement in the Trump Organization has led to her being called up to testify in the high-profile trial this week. And while the former senior aide to Donald Trump may have been seen as an outlier in the trial, an unrelated case may have led to her private communications negatively impacting her father's case.

At issue are potentially damaging emails, which Ivanka Trump was questioned about in court on Wednesday, because she was using a company email server.

Under normal court rules, any communication from one spouse to another is legally regarded as privileged and cannot be used in court.

Bucking this rule is the fact that Ivanka Trump wrote to her husband, Jared Kushner, on a Trump Organization email account. A judge ruled on Wednesday that her emails were admissible in the New York fraud trial of her father and brothers.

Over an objection from Trump's attorneys claiming spousal privilege, Ivanka Trump was questioned by Louis Solomon, a lawyer for the New York attorney general's office, about an email exchange she had with Kushner about potential funding from Capital One for the purchase of the Old Post Office in Washington D.C., which was renovated and opened as the Trump International Hotel in 2016.

Kushner said he could discuss the deal with investment bank Natixis because he thought they would give the Trump Organization better terms. James' office firmly places Ivanka Trump at the center of that purchase and claims she used inflated asset evaluation to secure a loan.

Explaining the ruling that deems the Trump-Kushner emails admissible, attorney Colleen Kerwick told Newsweek that, under New York law, once someone writes to their spouse through a company computer server, a judge has to apply a four-step test to assess if their communication is too personal to be admitted into court.

That four-step test comes from a case involving billionaire businessman and financier Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter, the former chairman and CEO of Marvel Entertainment, who had allegedly written to his wife on company emails.

"As such, those communications were allowed into evidence and Ivanka was questioned about them. The issue of emails on a company server waiving privilege was previously before an Appellate Court in Peerenboom v Marvel Entertainment," Kerwick said.

The Marvel Entertainment case involved a four-step test, which was adopted to determine whether spousal emails on a company server were privileged or not. The case involved an unsuccessful defamation action against Perlmutter, which was taken by his neighbor Harold Peerenboom in Palm Beach, Florida.

Back in 2011, the men had a dispute over the management of a tennis court at the condo complex where they owned homes. During the dispute, Perlmutter and his wife, Laura Perlmutter, sent old news article clippings about Peerenboom to other residents in their complex.

Between 2012 and 2015, thousands of anonymous letters were mailed out to friends, relatives, Palm Beach neighbors, and professional associates of Peerenboom. In the communications, Toronto businessman Peerenboom was falsely accused of being a child molester, murderer and antisemite.

Peerenboom, founder of the executive search firm Mandrake Management, subsequently sued the Perlmutters, accusing them of being behind the hate-mail campaign. While the Perlmutters admitted to sending out the news clippings in 2011, they denied having anything to do with the letters sent between 2012 and 2015.

In that case, Peerenboom wanted to introduce emails between Perlmutter and his wife that were allegedly routed through a Marvel Entertainment server.

"The cornerstone of the Marvel Entertainment test is whether the emails are confidential or not. If they are not confidential then privilege would be waived," Kerwick told Newsweek.

"I would hazard a guess that if Judge Engoron had not conducted an examination into the nuances of confidentiality, Team Trump may spin it into one of many building blocks for a mistrial."

While the lawsuit against the Perlmutters was eventually dismissed in 2021—with Canadian authorities tracing the letters in question back to a former employee of Peerenboom's company—it could now stand to affect the outcome of Donald Trump's trial, thanks to his daughter's emails.

Newsweek has contacted representatives of Donald Trump via email for comment.

Interestingly, Perlmutter is a friend of Donald Trump, and was on hand to cheer the 2024 presidential hopeful on at his rally in Hialeah, Florida, on Wednesday. Video footage from the event showed Donald Trump singling Perlmutter out for praise.

After telling the crowd that he knows "some of the smartest people," the onetime real estate mogul said: "I have one of them here tonight. He's one of the most incredible businessmen in the world... the great Ike Perlmutter... He's one of the greatest businessmen. He owned Marvel. He sold it to Disney. He's not too happy with Disney going woke, I will tell you, but he's one of the greatest businessmen."

After a tumultuous final few years under the Disney umbrella, Perlmutter was ousted in March of this year in a cost-cutting move. Marvel Entertainment, which centered on consumer products, was folded into larger business units at Disney.

Perlmutter, who sold Marvel to Disney in 2009 for $4 billion after acquiring it in the late 1990s, had not been involved in Marvel Studios, the movie arm of the company, since 2015 following a feud over the cost of Doctor Strange. Perlmutter lost oversight of Marvel's television shows in 2019. Marvel Studios is now run by Kevin Feige.

In the few remaining years that Perlmutter remained at Marvel, his role had been limited to helming such endeavors as the publishing of comics, an arm that analysts say generates $40 million to $60 million in annual sales. This stands in contrast to the approximate $83 billion Disney earned in total revenue in 2022.