Coral Gables attorney gives $500K to Trump’s presidential bid in protest of conviction
Hugh Franklin Culverhouse, Jr. — former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida and the son of the former owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — has given former President Donald Trump half a million dollars for his presidential campaign in protest of his felony conviction.
Last week, Trump was convicted on 34 counts in a New York state case of falsifying documents to hide hush-money payments to a porn star in order to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
Culverhouse told the Herald/Times this week that he feels like the case against Trump was politically motivated, as are the six other criminal and civil cases against him, and violate Trump’s constitutional right to testify.
“Anything he says on that witness stand can be used in all of the remaining suits,” Culverhouse, who practices constitutional law, said. “So, you basically have a violation of the Fifth Amendment.”
Culverhouse added: “The bottom line: that’s not kosher. That’s not fair. That’s not constitutional.”
Culverhouse, who is 75 and practices law at his firm in Coral Gables, has a long record of cutting large political checks to both Democrats and Republicans. Federal records show he donated to the Biden campaign and even the anti-Trump Lincoln Project in 2020, but has more recently been a big supporter of Republican causes, contributing more than $750,000 to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential campaign.
Culverhouse, who said he’s currently a registered Republican but has been an independent in the past, said he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. But since Biden took office, Culverhouse said he’s become increasingly conservative. Culverhouse “lost faith” in Biden after he withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
“You don’t walk out on your allies and just flee,” Culverhouse said.
And he’s been turned off by other policies such as Biden’s effort to cancel student debt.
While Culverhouse isn’t thrilled about Trump, he said he plans to vote for him in 2024 because he believes he’s being politically persecuted in the legal system. Fresh polling since the conviction indicates that he may not be alone. A SurveyMonkey poll in partnership with The 19th News of 5,893 Americans from May 30-31 found that 3% of voters were planning to switch to Trump after the verdict.
But the poll found little net impact, with Trump leading Biden 34% to 30% before and after the conviction.
LADY JUSTICE LOSES HER BLINDFOLD
Culverhouse, known for his philanthropy, said he’s wealthy enough that he’s donated $72 million to charitable organizations. An episcopalian, he said he’s given millions to both the Church of Redeemer in Sarasota and the Temple Beth Am in Pinecrest where his late father-in-law, Irwin Perlmutter, a Coral Gables neurosurgeon, was a founder.
Culverhouse has also given at least $1 million to the University of Miami Miller School of medicine, where he’s been treated for prostate cancer, and $10 million to the University of Florida, where he received his law degree.
Culverhouse’s consternation with how Trump is being treated in the legal system began with the civil E. Jean Carroll trial in which a jury found the former president sexually assaulted the writer in 1996 and then subsequently defamed her in his denial, ultimately awarding her $88.3 million in damages.
Amid the #MeToo movement, the New York Legislature in 2019 extended the statute of limitations for sexual assault to 20 years, but it didn’t apply retroactively. In 2022, it gave a one-year window for victims to sue over sexual offenses regardless of when they happened.
On the day that one year window went into effect, on Thanksgiving of 2022, Carroll filed suit alleging defamation and battery against Trump.
“The extension that allowed him to be charged, I feel, was done because of Trump,” Culverhouse told the Herald/Times. (A different high-profile New York criminal sexual assault case that occurred over a similar period of time was against former film producer Harvey Weinstein.)
And there was a trend Culverhouse saw beginning in the Carroll case’s trial that bothered him as well: Trump hardly testified. He reportedly testified for roughly four minutes, mostly to reaffirm his earlier deposition in the case. Culverhouse believes the former president didn’t take the stand because he didn’t want his testimony to be used against him in future cases.
Trump did testify for four hours in 2023 in a New York civil fraud case as a witness, but then canceled his decision to testify in his defense. And while he was expected to testify in the hush-money case, he ultimately did not.
“The Fifth Amendment says you don’t have to testify. But the Fifth Amendment also gives you the right to testify,” Culverhouse said. “And what you’re doing right now, is you’re keeping Donald Trump or any person in his position from testifying because he’s got three criminal cases staring at him.”
Normally, when we hear about someone invoking the Fifth Amendment, it’s in reference to them choosing to not testify so as to not incriminate themselves. But Culverhouse argues that this choice must be “freely made” and “not a forced choice.”
Culverhouse said effectively barring Trump from defending himself on the stand was akin to removing Lady Justice’s blindfold, and thus, her unbiased nature.
“When you take off that bandana, the fairness of the system evaporates,” Culverhouse said.
Culverhouse said he may give more money to Trump this cycle, depending on how the other cases against him go.