New York State Attorney General Letitia James is one of Donald Trump’s most vicious and active lawfare tormentors.
The President-elect thought winning the 2024 election would end this politically based courtroom harassment.
But Donald Trump just got one answer from Letitia James that blindsided everyone.
Letitia James refuses to abandon lawfare assault on the incoming President
Donald Trump winning re-election by such huge margins meant the end of almost all the criminal cases against him.
That’s because, as everyone knows, these cases were purely political and almost all merely attempts to stop him from winning in November.
Jack Smith moved to dismiss the Mar-a-Lago document and January 6 hoax indictments against Trump.
Trump has asked a court in Georgia to throw out Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ 2020 election witch hunt against him.
There is now zero chance of Judge Juan Merchan sentencing Trump in Alvin Bragg’s falsification of business records show trial.
One of the last remaining cases is New York Attorney General Letitia 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’s 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.
But 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,” Letitia James underling in the New York Attorney General’s office, Deputy New York Solicitor General Judith Vale, wrote in response.
This is no surprise to anyone following James’ witch hunt against the President-elect.
In fact, after Trump’s election victory, 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 playing a losing hand
Sauer offered James a graceful way out of a fight she was going to lose.
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.
“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 destroy any business in New York simply because she doesn’t like them.
The judgement awarded by Judge Engoron was always unlikely to survive appeal.
But James didn’t want to take that way out of this case.
She would rather continue her full-scale assault on her political opponents, the law and justice be damned.