Each demand for material would be accompanied by a public explanation of why it’s important. I have a partial list upthread: Epstein, Amoluments. Deployment of troops. Et. That becomes the “headline” attached to something people know is real.

Sure - but why does any of the above have anything to do with the lawsuit?

If you want to write a story about Epstein or emoluments, why not just write a story about that? Rather than have your article chained to the unquestionably boring aspect of a discovery request?

Discovery doesn't work the way I think you imagine it. There's not going to be a deposition or anything exciting going on. There won't be a filing every week. The NYT will send Trump's lawyers a document asking for every record that Trump has that's relevant to his business dealings, Trump's lawyers will write back and give a bunch of responsive (but useless) documents and a laundry list of things they think are privileged or exempt - and then the lawyers will fight about it in motions. The Times won't send a request for just materials on Epstein (which wouldn't be germane to the lawsuit), or just materials on emoluments, or anything like that. There won't be discrete "issue of the week" requests - that's not how the process is set up.

No one else is going to be able to join in. This isn't an investigation - it's court discovery. No one else will be participating unless they're another named party.

Again, you could do it - but I can't imagine that the Times can't come up with better hooks for these types of stories than tying it back to a boring discovery filing.