Letitia James gave Donald Trump the one answer he never wanted to hear
New York State Attorney General Letitia James is one of Donald Trump’s lawfare tormentors.
Trump thought winning the 2024 election would end this courtroom harassment.
But Letitia James gave Donald Trump the one answer he never wanted to hear.
Letitia James refuses to abandon lawfare
Donald Trump winning re-election meant the end of the criminal cases against him.
Jack Smith moved to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago document and January 6 hoax indictments.
Trump asked a court in Georgia to throw out Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ 2020 election witch hunt.
There is zero chance of Judge Juan Merchan sentencing Trump in Alvin Bragg’s falsification of business records show trial.
One of the last remaining pillars of the lawfare remaining is New York Attorney General Letita James’ sham civil fraud suit, where Democrat Judge Arthur Engoron handed down a $464 million judgment against Trump.
Trump appealed the decision and posted a bond that prevented James from collecting while that process played out.
Trump’s lawyer John Sauer – who is the President-elect nominee to serve as Solicitor General – argued in a letter to James’ office that the Supreme Court decision on Presidential immunity meant her office should drop its effort to fight Trump’s appeal of the civil fraud judgement.
James wouldn’t budge.
“The ordinary burdens of civil litigation do not impede the President’s official duties in a way that violates the U.S. Constitution,” Deputy Solicitor General Judith Vale wrote in response.
This is no surprise.
After the election, James released a statement pledging to wage a new round of lawfare against the incoming Trump administration.
“I am ready to do everything in my power to ensure our state and nation do not go backwards,” James declared. “Together with Governor Hochul, our partners in state and local government, and my colleague attorneys general from throughout the nation, we will work each and every day to defend Americans, no matter what this new administration throws at us. We are ready to fight back again.”
Letitia James is playing a losing hand
In reality, Sauer offered James a graceful way out of a fight she was going to lose big.
A five-justice panel on the appellate division court sounded highly skeptical about the judgement James won.
One justice noted James sued Trump for fraud in a case where the banks made profit off the loans to Trump and that there were no victims.
“Every case that you cite involves damage to consumers, damage to the marketplace,” Justice David Friedman stated,
“We don’t have anything like that here,” Friedman added, pointing out that no one “lost any money.”
Sauer doubled down on that point, telling the justices that the bank that loaned Trump the money testified it would have given the exact same terms to someone worth far less than Trump so Trump’s financial statements about his net worth and value of his assets didn’t play a decisive role in the decision to lend him money.
“What is not disputed is the testimony that if the net worth had been as low as one million (dollars), the deal would’ve been exactly the same,” Sauer argued.
“There were no victims, no complaints,” Sauer emphasized.
Other justices noted the tyrannical application of New York’s civil fraud statute, which gave the Attorney General unlimited power to target businesses for virtually any reason.
“I think you hear underneath all these questions, the question of mission creep,” Associate Justice Peter Moulton wondered during oral arguments.
“Has 6312 — New York’s civil fraud law — morphed into something that it was not meant to do? How do we draw a line or at least put up guardrails?” Moulton added.
James’ vindictive application of the New York civil fraud statute alarms legal observers because the expansive interpretation of the law meant James could vaporize any business in New York that ended up on her bad side.
The judgement awarded by Engoron was always unlikely to survive appeal.
But James didn’t seem to want to take that way out of this case.
