The Many Lawsuits of Donald Trump and D.C. Chefs

America's presumptive Republican presidential candidate/taco salad-eating toupée model Donald Trump is throwing his legal team at prominent chefs in the D.C. area after a restaurant deal went south. It's been a two-year saga, and now Trump is fully embroiled in legal disputes with two of the chefs who were originally tapped to lead restaurants in the hotel: José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian both signed on to open restaurants but later pulled out of the project as a result of comments Trump made on the campaign trail regarding immigrants.

Here, Eater dives into the timeline of these disputes, including a look at the concepts that will (likely) move forward in Trump International.

2012

February: Donald Trump sets plans in motion to redevelop Washington, DC's Old Post Office into a hotel.

2014

December: Trump announces he will sign on award-winning chef José Andrés to lead a restaurant in the hotel.

2015

May: TV personality, restaurateur, and chef Geoffrey Zakarian joins the mix with plans to take charge of an eatery within Trump International. The deals are set, and all is well.

June 16: Trump is on the campaign trail and lets loose some pretty heinous statements regarding Mexican immigrants.

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Andrés, a native of Spain, took great issue with the vitriol.

July 6: Some of Andrés' supporters launch a Change.org petition to encourage the chef to dump the Trump project.

July 8: Andrés announces his decision to abandon the project.

July 9: Geoffrey Zakarian also announces that he will not move forward with a Trump Hotel restaurant.

July 31: Trump sues Andrés for breach of contract and releases a statement on the issue:

In the event Mr. Andrés defaults in the performance of his obligations, we will not hesitate to take legal action to recover all unpaid rent for the entire 10 year term together with all attorneys' fees and additional damages we may sustain.

The moment you realize that you are being sued by a Presidential nominee....the moment I realize I'm a proud new American immigrant citizen!

— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) May 4, 2016

August 5: Trump announces his plans to sue Zakarian.

August 24: Andrés expresses his extreme displeasure with Trump's statements on Twitter.

.@realDonaldTrump Immigrants make USA greater. Immigrants are proud of USA. Immigrants are the pride of USA.99.9% of us, We are good people!

— José Andrés (@chefjoseandres) August 24, 2015

September 30: Despite all this controversy, the hotel manages to find a restaurant tenant. BLT Prime is set to open at the hotel, extending the longtime partnership between chef Laurent Tourondel's restaurants and Trump hotels. The original concept, BLT Steak, has been around for years, and the partnership with Trump first emerged in 2006, when BLT Soho was announced as the restaurant in for Trump's New York hotel condominium.

October: Andrés announces plans to countersue, with claims that Trump was the one breaching the contract, given the massive affronts he had made in the direction of immigrants. Zakarian also countersues.

2016

January 6: D.C.'s mayor Muriel Bowser jumps into the fray, saying that while Trump's hotel was valuable, the lawsuit had the potential to harm the chef's business, saying "we really would like them to resolve that."

February 17: Trump is told he must appear in court if he wants to continue with the lawsuits.

February 26: Additionally, lawyers for Trump and Andrés have appeared in court, with Andrés' lawyers asking for summary judgement on the case to determine its merits.

May 9: David Burke (formerly of the David Burke Group and a repeat Top Chef Masters alumnus) is announced as the executive chef at BLT Prime.

June 17: Lawyers for Zakarian depose Trump in D.C. Both Andrés and Zakarian have expressed concerns that Trump's comments could hurt their businesses and reputations. Zakarian's countersuit read, in part:

Mr. Trump's comments would inevitably affect the customer base as well, given that high-income customers — immigrants and non-immigrants, Hispanics and non-Hispanics — were refusing to patronize establishments associated with Mr. Trump.

In both lawsuits, Trump is seeking to recover more than $10 million in damages, estimated to be the cost of the lease over the course of the contract, as well as attorney's fees.

The suit against Zakarian addresses Trump's potential losses from the soured deal.

As a result of Tenant's decision to abandon its obligations under the Sublease at this late date, Landlord has already suffered and will continue to suffer millions of dollars in costs, expenses, losses and other damages.