OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
She successfully sued former President Donald Trump in a state civil court earlier this year for fraud, and this week she filed a new lawsuit against him.
The suit “raises concerns about her office’s handling of a business fraud case decided four years ago,” Newsweek reported, adding that the legal action “was filed by Ariel Schachter, who served as the CFO of Northern Leasing Systems, a business that was barred from practicing leasing in New York after a court sided with James’ office regarding accusations that it engaged in fraudulent and deceptive practices across the United States.”
Former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman initiated the civil case in 2016, alleging that the business engaged in deceptive practices by inducing small businesses to sign lease agreements without fully disclosing the terms and misrepresenting facts. Attorney General Letitia James continued the case after taking office in 2019. In 2020, a court ruled the business liable for fraud, the outlet noted.
Newsweek reported that Schachter has now requested a court ruling that the judgment is unenforceable in Texas, as he plans to open a new leasing business there.
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, where Schachter intends to establish his new business, Fresh Start Leasing LLC.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, an appointee of the former president who is known for issuing staunchly conservative rulings.
“He rose to national prominence in April 2023 by ordering the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to void its decades-long approval of mifepristone, a pill used to terminate pregnancies,” Newsweek reported.
“The U.S. Supreme Court last month heard arguments challenging Kacsmaryk’s ruling, with justices generally skeptical about efforts to ban the drug. James attended a rally at the court urging the justices to overturn his ruling,” the outlet added.
Earlier this week, a Fox News contributor claimed that Trump has the right to sue James for allegedly violating the former president’s civil rights.
Political analyst and frequent guest on the conservative news channel Deroy Murdock made the statement following the decision of a New York appeals court to postpone the payment of Trump’s $454 million civil fraud penalty resulting from James’ lawsuit. Instead, the former president was instructed to pay a $175 million bond within ten days while he filed an appeal with the court.
Murdock repeated his recommendations from an American Spectator article that Trump should sue James for remarks she made in 2018 when she was a candidate for New York state attorney general, Newsweek noted.
He said that James declared that she was going to oppose the Trump administration because it was “too male, too pale, and too stale.”
“Now, you could talk about stale ideas, that’s fine, but too male and too pale, that constitutes, basically, sex and race discrimination. So I think what President Trump ought to do is sue her on the basis of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” Murdock told Fox News on Tuesday.
“Her office gets federal money for various subsidies for law enforcement activity. So federal money is flowing into her office and if she is engaged in that kind of sexual and racial discrimination and that kind of language, I think she’s wide open to exposure on the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” Murdock said.
“Donald J. Trump should sue Letitia James on the basis of Civil Rights,” Murdock added.
Trump has also accused James of conducting a “racist” and politically motivated investigation into him.
Writing in The American Spectator, Murdock suggested the former president should sue James as “what the hell does Trump have to lose?”
“He immediately should file a federal complaint and demand justice under America’s keystone civil-rights law. To see a white male multi-billionaire sue a [Black] female attorney general to secure his civil rights would be the ultimate man-bites-dog story,” Murdock wrote.
“For this extraordinary spectacle, America owes a hearty thank you to New York state’s leading despot, Attorney General Letitia James.”
