Former US President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit this Monday (20) against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading investigations involving the Republican and the Trump Organization, owned by his family.
The news comes two weeks after US media revealed that James’ office subpoenaed Trump to testify as part of a civil investigation into fraud at the company. The deadline for deposition is January 7, according to information disclosed by one of the former president’s lawyers, Ronald Fischetti, to CNN.
Trump and the company, which is also a plaintiff in the case, allege that James violated his rights under the US Constitution by conducting an investigation for political purposes. The Republican fueled the argument after James announced in October that he would run in the Democratic primary for the New York government. Weeks later, however, the attorney general withdrew from the candidacy.
“By filing this lawsuit, we intend not only to hold her accountable for her flagrant constitutional violations, but to stop her hard crusade to punish a political opponent in her path,” said Alina Habba, who is part of Trump’s defense, after filing the lawsuit in a New York court.
James, in a statement, responded that the investigation will continue relentless. “No one is above the law, not even someone by the name of Trump,” he added. “The Trump Organization has continually sought to delay our investigation into the company’s dealings; to be clear, neither Trump nor the company can dictate whether and where they will be held accountable for their actions.”
Trump claims that James is motivated by a partisan bias against him and mentions public statements made by her in the process.
When she announced her run for state government, Letitia James used Trump’s name as one of her campaign banners. The investigation he leads against the former president was one of the main factors that projected it into public space, as were the sexual abuse investigations involving former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, which led to the Democrat’s resignation in August.
“I’m running for governor of New York because I have the experience, vision and courage to stand up to the powerful on behalf of all New Yorkers,” James wrote on social media at the time. Together, he published a video in which, among other things, he says he sued the administration of former President Donald Trump 76 times. “But who’s counting?”
The lawsuit even mentions other public quotes by James to Trump, such as a 2017 tweet in which she claimed to be “leading the resistance against Donald Trump in New York”. At the time, James was a public defender of the state and was running for the attorney general. The Republican’s defense claims she has consolidated her campaign strategy on top of an anti-Trump agenda.
James made other mentions of Trump on social media at the time, such as when he wrote that New Yorkers needed someone to stand up to Trump and defend their rights. “I will be that person, join my campaign”, completed the message.
The investigation led by James in New York is looking into whether the Trump Organization would have inflated property values ​​to get more advantageous loans and lowered their values ​​to get tax breaks. The company, for its part, repeatedly classifies the investigation as a witch hunt.
The investigation is related, even if it goes separately, to a criminal investigation of more than three years led by the Manhattan Public Prosecutor, Cyrus Vance. In this case, the Trump Organization is investigated for a pattern of fraud by submitting false property values ​​to potential creditors. The company and one of its chief financial officers, Allen Weisselberg, were indicted for tax crimes in June and pleaded not guilty.
In the lawsuit filed on Monday, Trump also tries to bar the attorney general’s participation in this investigation, claiming that treating civil and criminal investigations in parallel is inadequate. Prosecutor Cyrus Vance leaves office at the end of the year and has not yet signaled who the investigation will be handed over.
.
