The Miss Universe Pageant helped paved Donald’s way to the White House Donald Trump has built a legend by clinching highly-creative deals, but did you know that he dodged perhaps the most potentially damaging lawsuit of his career by mollifying angry plaintiffs with, get ready for this, a big stake in a beauty contest ? As far as this writer can tell, Trump’s gambit of trading a stake in the Miss Universe pageant for a pivotal legal settlement has never been reported in the press, though well establish in public documents. Yet the episode illustrates just how skillfully Trump deploys both imaginative stratagems, and relentless resistance, in giving those who sue him the absolute minimum, no matter what the merits of the case.