Partisan New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday that the state was filing suit against former President Donald Trump, his company, and family members for fraud.
New York’s courts are notoriously corrupt, and getting a fair jury will be a challenge.
James didn’t try to bring this to criminal court because she didn’t have a case. Meanwhile, New York is awash with crime and she does nothing about that.
🚨BREAKING: Hack NY State AG Letitia James files civil lawsuit against Trump, some of his children, and his business
The witch-hunt continues. pic.twitter.com/stdxcaQoW7
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 21, 2022
TRUMP RESPONDS
THE LAWSUIT
New York is suing Trump, Trump Organization officials, and three of the former president’s adult children – Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. She wants at least $250 million in penalties for allegedly widespread fraud involving false financial statements related to the company.
James, a far-left Democrat, campaigned on suing Trump. She said her suit followed a “comprehensive three-year investigation” involving “interviews with 65 witnesses and the review of millions of documents.”
“We’re filing a lawsuit against Donald Trump for violating the law as part of his efforts to generate profits for himself, his family, and his company,” James said.
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“The complaint demonstrates that Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself, and to cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us.”
TRUMP’S ATTORNEY RESPONDS
Donald Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, released a statement following James’ announcement.
“Today’s filing is neither focused on the facts nor the law – rather, it is solely focused on advancing the attorney general’s political agenda. It is abundantly clear that the Attorney General’s Office has exceeded its statutory authority by prying into transactions where absolutely no wrongdoing has taken place,” Habba said.
“We are confident that our judicial system will not stand for this unchecked abuse of authority, and we look forward to defending our client against each and every one of the attorney general’s meritless claims.”
James claimed Trump’s children, former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, and organization controller Jeffrey McConney assisted the former president in the alleged crimes.
SHE SPENT YEARS TRYING TO FABRICATE A CASE
James made her clear-cut bias and animosity toward the president known before her election. She promised to go after him in an unprofessional selfie rant last November. This is what fascist New York thinks is reasonable behavior by an attorney general.
Very Disturbing Clips
When New York Attorney General Letitia James ran in 2018, she called Trump an "illegitimate president," promised to be a "pain in his ass," said Trump was "fueling her soul," said "I look forward every day to suing Trump."
Today, she filed a civil suit against Trump and his kids pic.twitter.com/mDB8w9jfNQ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 21, 2022
New York’s radical Attorney General Letitia James is using her office to attack President Trump just 48 DAYS before her own election.
These politically-charged witch hunts will FAIL! pic.twitter.com/qFWokoJu1r
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 21, 2022
THE JANUARY WSJ EDITORIAL
In January, the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board commented on her nearly five-year pursuit of the Trumps without any evidence of a crime. It’s quite Stalinesque.
New York’s Trump Inquisition
One feature that distinguishes the U.S. legal system from, say, Russia’s, is that prosecutors are charged with pursuing justice—not politically disfavored individuals or families. New York Attorney General Letitia James’s legal pursuit of Donald Trump, his organization, and his children, now entering its fourth calendar year, smacks of the latter. She’s now trying to compel testimony from two of the former President’s children, and there had better be rock-solid evidence of significant wrongdoing at the end of this road to justify the corrosive appearance of politicized justice.
Ms. James’s investigation, according to a 2020 court filing, focuses on whether Mr. Trump or others “improperly inflated the value of [his] assets on annual financial statements in order to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.”
She’s going after his tax statement to take advantage of loopholes. Democrats have accused Donald Trump of exaggerating his worth since 2015. She’s making an issue of it weeks before the election.
The Attorney General’s recent subpoena of Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, which they are trying to quash, seeks information “in connection with an investigation into the valuation of properties owned or controlled by Donald J. Trump or the Trump Organization, or any matter which the Attorney General deems pertinent thereto.”
A federal lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump seeking to halt the investigation notes that his son Eric already was deposed by Ms. James’s office in 2020 and that the former President has “produced over 8 million pages of documents in response to [Ms. James’s] subpoenas” since 2019.
The lawsuit notes that Ms. James’s 2018 campaign to be New York’s top legal officer was dominated by political attacks on Mr. Trump. She said she’d investigate “anyone in [Trump’s] orbit,” and declared the President “illegitimate.” Even Daniel Goldman, a Democratic ex-prosecutor who would go on to serve on the House 2019 impeachment investigation targeting Mr. Trump, said Ms. James’s campaign could “give the appearance of an individualized political vendetta,” the lawsuit says.
In June the Manhattan District Attorney indicted the Trump Organization and its former chief financial officer for allegedly concealing executive compensation. They’ve pleaded not guilty, and the charges might have been handled by a fine if not for Mr. Trump’s low political standing in New York.
Ms. James’s parallel investigation has yet to produce civil fraud charges. Attorneys General of both parties are increasingly entangled in national partisan politics, but it would take significant findings of fraud by her office to justify the damage to the legal system inflicted by an apparently political probe against an opposition party leader. Unless Ms. James has the goods and can prove them unambiguously, her investigation looks like more evidence of the decline of America’s rule of law.
wpDiscuz
