Donald Trump announced last week that he is dropping his $5 million lawsuit against comedian Bill Maher over Maher’s statement on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that he would donate $5 million to a charity of Trump’s choice if Trump could prove that he was not "the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan." The joke was a reference to an offer that Trump — a supporter of the so-called "birther" movement — made to President Barack Obama last fall to donate $5 million to charity if Obama would release his college transcripts.
Trump produced his birth certificate and sued Maher for $5 million, saying that Maher didn’t honor his end of the bargain. The spat escalated with Maher’s incredulous response on his TV show, Real Time with Bill Maher, in which he said Trump needed to learn "what a joke is and what a contract is" and that the legal system is "not a toy for rich idiots to play with." As The Am Law Daily reported ("Comic Maher Goes Ape Over Cooley-Repped Trump’s Simian Sex Suit"), Maher also took some comic shots at Trump’s lawyer, Cooley’s Scott Balber, showing a letter from Balber and saying, "Look at the lawyer’s signature — it just kind of trails off, as if to say, ‘I’m too embarrassed to even finish this.’"
