OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has made an announcement about her case regarding the Trump Organization.
Prior to her press conference reporter Kyle Cheney tweeted what her announcement was.
“The NY AG is suing Trump and two of his kids, alleging a massive campaign of fraudulent business practices by the Trump Org. She’s also urging federal prosecutors and the IRS to pursue criminal probes,” he said.
“The wide-ranging lawsuit alleges decades of deception and relies on a statute for repeat violations of law. The suit stems from a 3.5 year investigation that began with Michael Cohen’s testimony to Congress alleging Trump inflated value of assets to win favorable financial deals,” he said.
The wide-ranging lawsuit alleges decades of deception and relies on a statute for repeat violations of law. The suit stems from a 3.5 year investigation that began with Michael Cohen's tesimony to Congress alleging Trump inflated value of assets to win favorable financial deals.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 21, 2022
The lawsuit seeks a minimum of $250 million in damages.
It said that Trump’s personal financial statements “for the period 2011 through 2021 were fraudulent and misleading in both their composition and presentation.”
″The number of grossly inflated asset values is staggering, affecting most if not all of the real estate holdings in any given year. All told, Mr. Trump, the Trump Organization, and the other Defendants, as part of a repeated pattern and common scheme, derived more than 200 false and misleading valuations of assets included in the 11 Statements covering 2011 through 2021.”
She had previously indicated that she could sue former President Donald Trump after rejecting an offer to resolve the civil investigation into his family business last week, The Washington Examiner reported.
“The Trump Organization has sought to reach a deal with James’s office for months after the office told a court in January it had uncovered evidence the company used “fraudulent or misleading” asset valuations to secure loans and other tax benefits. James has been leading the investigation for three years,” the report said.
James has been on a crusade against Trump since before she was elected to the office of Attorney General.
It was August when Trump took the Fifth Amendment in a New York case centered around a civil investigation into his company’s finances.
He pleaded the Fifth on Wednesday during a deposition with the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, Politico reported.
Trump, who has long accused James of conducting a politically motivated probe into his family’s real estate business, said in a statement Wednesday that he had “absolutely no choice” but to take the Fifth during his under-oath interview with the attorney general’s office. James is leading an investigation into the Trump Organization’s business practices, examining allegations that the former president’s company misstated asset values on financial documents.
“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?’ Now I know the answer to that question,” the former president said. “When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”
“I declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution,” he said.
“If there was any question in my mind, the raid of my home, Mar-a-Lago, on Monday by the FBI, just two days prior to this deposition, wiped out any uncertainty,” he said.
He also attacked James on his TruthSocial account.
“At the very plush, beautiful, and expensive A.G.’s office. Nice working conditions, as people are being murdered all over New York – and she spends her time and effort on trying to ‘get Trump,’” he said.
And it is not like the former president has no basis for that argument, as a video shared in January showed.
The video shows New York’s current Democrat Attorney General Letitia James vowing to bring down Trump when she was campaigning for the job.
She bragged about, and campaigned on, saying that she would take on the sitting President of the United States, who was Trump, if New Yorkers voted for her and she won.
She fulfilled her promise last week when she filed a motion to obtain a court order to have three Trump family members appear for sworn testimony, backing her subpoenas of them.
Eric Trump shared the video of James’ promises to take down Trump on his Instagram page.
“This is not the United States Legal System – This is third-world prosecutorial misconduct. Promising to target a political opponent and their family before even entering office – it’s hard to believe this is America. Letitia James may go down as the most politically corrupt Attorney General in New York history,” he said in the caption of the video.
“Stay Tuned… we have sued her for her unethical behavior and a judge will see every one of these videos, her viciousness, and the pure malice of her actions and statements.
“More to come: Tomorrow may just be a video of James ad-libbing the song “I will survive” while interjecting hate speech about Donald Trump…. very common for the top law enforcement official in the State of New York,” the former president’s son said.
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“This garbage erodes Americans’ confidence in the legal system and it will stop. Thank you to everyone who has sent videos of her – we seem to get new ones almost every day. #KeepThemComing,” he said.
After becoming attorney general she was asked by talk show host Samantha Bee “Can we actually get him?” to which James responded with laughter and then said, “we’re not here to get anyone.”
