Tactics that destroyed a revolutionary auto in 1948 used to indict Trump
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the birth and death of Preston Tucker’s dream car. The circumstances causing its demise were eerily similar to the legal entanglements the left is using to destroy Donald Trump.
The 1948 Tucker was as revolutionary then as was the Tesla E.V. when it was launched by Elon Musk just a few years ago. As an antique car enthusiast, I have toured the impressive Tucker automobile display in the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) Museum in Hershey, PA and was impressed by the car’s engineering, styling, and technology. In comparison, my 1948 Chrysler convertible seems primitive. This is because my Chrysler, like most post-war cars that year, was merely a slightly freshened version of the 1942 model.
The Tucker automobile may have offered the public something new and exciting, but its production was handicapped because, unlike the big three Detroit automakers, who had pre-existing tooling and production facilities, full scale production of the Tucker was a start-up dependent on outside financing from stock sales. This factor plus some surprise government interference meant that only 50 Tuckers were produced in total versus many thousands of 1948 cars sold by the big three.
Some readers may remember the 1988 movie Tucker: The Man and His Dream, which strongly suggested that the legal system was weaponized against Preston Tucker. Since seeing the movie, Tucker’s legal problems had become a distant memory until reawakened by an article in the latest print issue of the “Old Cars Weekly” magazine titled “Tuckers Turn 75.” Articles about antique cars usually offer an escape from partisan politics. However, in this article, the glaring similarities between the legal tactics used to destroy Preston Tucker and those presently being used to destroy Donald Trump were hard to dismiss.
The most relevant part of the Old Cars Weekly article pulled from a presentation given by attorney Steve Lehto, author of “Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow,” given at the 75th Anniversary Celebration of the Tucker ’48 at the AACA Museum. Lehto included some new information from his book that was uncovered after the 1988 movie, and he explained in detail many of Preston Tucker’s legal nightmares, which ranged from the “merely unusual to the nearly inexplicable” legal entanglements that destroyed both him and his dream car.
Following are seven tactics used to destroy Tucker’s dream based on information gleaned from Steve Lehto’s AACA presentation. I rearranged them like a step-by-step playbook:
1. Have a powerful political office-holder task a major federal agency to launch a surprise investigation of the target:
“Tucker maintained that Senator Homer Ferguson was behind the entire matter.” However, evidence to prove his direct connection with the head of the agency performing the actual investigation proved elusive. However, a story was found in The NY Times archive that adds some credibility to Tucker’s claim. It reported that “A Federal district court jury today heard testimony that Senator Homer Ferguson, Republican, of Michigan, was “hell bent” on jailing Preston Tucker and that a Internal Revenue Department official in this city told an agent to get incriminating evidence “any way possible.”
2. Immediately leak news of the pending investigation to the media to turn public opinion, investors, and supporters against the target:
So on June 6, 1948, Drew Pearson with his radio program syndicated nationwide announced that there was going to be this huge investigation into Tucker, it’s going to blow the thing sky high and all this hyperbole about how the investigation was going to wreak havoc on Tucker, which is an unusual concept, that the investigation hasn’t really begun yet, but this guy already knows how it’s going to go.
3. Have the federal agency show up unannounced to review the records of the target and then blow anything found out of proportion to justify a deeper investigation and subpoenas:
Preston Tucker sold the stock and started building cars. The Securities and Exchange Commission [note, the SEC was headed by Harry McDonald, coincidentally from Detroit] began investigating Tucker, we do not know why.
When Tucker asked why, the SEC replied that it had found deficiencies in connection with the stock offering and the annual report. Typically errors could be corrected via an amended report, but when Tucker and his attorneys spoke to the SEC about that, the matter of the stock offering was brought up and he was told that a correction or amendment was not possible.
The SEC soon acted and subpoenaed everything but the people and the desks, effectively shutting down the factory which could not work without documents such as blueprints, invoices and parts numbers. Tucker’s attorneys sought to have the subpoena quashed, but were unsuccessful and the SEC stated that it would protect the information it had collected and sought disgruntled Tucker employees for interviews.
4. Use the agency’s final report to bring charges before a grand jury with cherry-picked information to help secure criminal indictments against the target:
They turned information over to a grand jury. There is no defense in a grand jury. The prosecutor can bring in whatever evidence they want, cherry-pick it, and tell the grand jury “look, we’ve got this evidence here. We want to file indictments to indict people.”
5. Find disgruntled employees, staff, or business associates willing to testify against the target:
They went through the SEC report and cherry-picked the best disgruntled employees they could find and the best documents out of context they could find in an attempt to make this look like it was a better case than it really was.
6. Withhold confidential and exculpatory information in the final government report from the target’s defense team while leaking the full report to the prosecution prior to the trial:
By the SEC giving the report to the prosecution, they could actually use that as a blueprint, and they did. … Tucker’s legal team was denied access to the report and that while the prosecution claimed in court not to be using it in the case, it later admitted to having had it.
7. If acquitted of charges, encourage lawsuits by disgruntled investors:
It [the trial] added up to acquittal on all charges, but at the same time in the same Chicago courthouse, Tucker was facing lawsuits from those who’d invested, bought dealerships or pre-ordered cars, something led to Tucker’s bankruptcy. The auction of the factory and its contents followed.
In conclusion, the weaponized legal system playbook used in 1948 appears eerily similar to the version being used to destroy Trump. Although the Tucker story went national, a federal investigation of an insignificant start-up car manufacturer that may have eventually failed even without government interference was soon forgotten. However, the nation may not be as forgiving to those on both sides of the aisle “hell bent” on destroying the leading Republican presidential candidate for 2024!
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