NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s attorney general sued former President Donald Trump and his company on Wednesday, alleging business fraud involving some of their most prized assets, including properties in Manhattan, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit, filed in state court in New York, is the culmination of the Democrat’s three-year civil investigation of Trump and the Trump Organization. Trump’s three eldest children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump, were also named as defendants, along with two longtime company executives, Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney.
The lawsuit seeks to strike at the core of what made Trump famous, taking a blacklight to the image of wealth and opulence he’s embraced throughout his career — first as a real estate developer, then as a reality TV host on “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice,” and later as president.
James, a Democrat, announced details of the lawsuit at a news conference on Wednesday. The case showed up on a court docket Wednesday morning.
“Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself, and cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us,” James said at the news conference.
The goal, the attorney general’s office has said, was to burnish Trump’s billionaire image and the value of his properties when doing so gave him an advantage, while playing down the value of assets at other times for tax purposes.
James is seeking to remove the Trumps from businesses engaged in the alleged fraud and wants an independent monitor appointed for no less than five years to oversee the Trump Organization’s compliance, financial reporting, valuations and disclosures to lenders, insurers and tax authorities.
She is seeking to replace the current trustees of Trump’s revocable trust, which controls his business interests, with independent trustee, to bar Trump and the Trump Organization from entering into commercial real estate acquisitions for five years, from obtaining loans from banks in New York for five years and permanently bar Trump and his three eldest children from serving as an officer or director in any New York corporation or similar business entity registered and/or licensed in New York State.
She also seeks to permanently bar Weisselberg and McConney from serving in the financial control function of any New York corporation or similar business entity registered and/or licensed in New York State.
James said her investigation uncovered potential criminal violations, including falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, insurance fraud, conspiracy and bank fraud. She said her office is referring those findings to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service.
The goal, the attorney general’s office has said, was to burnish Trump’s billionaire image and the value of his properties when doing so gave him an advantage, while playing down the value of assets at other times for tax purposes.
Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said the lawsuit “is neither focused on the facts nor the law — rather, it is solely focused on advancing the Attorney General’s political agenda.”
“It is abundantly clear that the Attorney General’s Office has exceeded its statutory authority by prying into transactions where absolutely no wrongdoing has taken place,” Habba said. “We are confident that our judicial system will not stand for this unchecked abuse of authority, and we look forward to defending our client against each and every one of the Attorney General’s meritless claims.”
This piece of Tish is more concerned about her image and her career than the well being of new yorkers. Every catch and release perp that is let back into society is a walking danger to ever new yorker… Why dont you put your energy into the safety of new yorkers???
Imagine what a great AJ NY has. NY is one of the most crime ridden cities/states and the biggest criminal this phony politician got is the Trump family.
Wow! are we lucky. Now NY will be safe once Trump will be prosecuted.
One of the most prosecuted and investigated man, all by chance, by a blind system of Justice.
Now go after Clinton Fraudation and the rest of the Democrat criminals. Let’s see Nancy the Ripper’s stock fraud and the rest of this evil gang .
Why would anyone take this baby killer serious?
Partisan hack
Sue this woman as a fraudulent AG
Here is the complaint.
A 222 page complaint. Page 193 is pretty bad for him but the representations he made to AON insurance underwriters that the company had no outstanding investigations or litigations is a pretty material lie since they were already defending themselves against the Trump Foundation case brought against their fake charity.
This is very comprehensive but again, not a criminal case. He’s going to pay an enormous fine, probably with money from his PAC donors.
Crime thru the roof and she’s at trump again joe many times does she need to lose her cases before she dies something to protect NYS
Spent her whole tenure trying to find something to criminally charge Trump, becasue that us what the corrupt partisan hack ran on, she failed in that an couldnt get him so is settling for a civil suit right before the election she is running in, she filed it close enough to the election so that it wont be dismissed until after the election.
Lititia James ימח שמו וזכרונוneeds to be countersued for defamation and needs to be disbarred and needs to be voted out of office come 11/8/2022, as does hochul.
No wonder there has been no time to prosecute viscious criminals, and hence no wonder the spike in crime.
Eric Adam’s needs to be true to his words & cross party lines immediately
Why does Josh mehlman of fjcc have so many pictures with her?
Would those defending Trump explain why he claimed that his Trump Tower apartment was 30,000 square feet worth $327,000,000 although it’s actually 11,000 square feet worth far less?
How about the Trump claim that Mar a Lago is worth $739 million while the actual value is $75 million?.
Referrals have been made to the IRS and Manhattan DA.
I suspect most anyone in the real estate business in New York City is cheating on things.
Defense of Trump by (far too) many Trump supporters:
1) We love Trump, therefore, it can’t be true.
2) There’s a lot of other crime going on in NY, therefore, it can’t be true.
3) The AG in NY is named Tish, so she can be called a “piece of Tish”, therefore, it can’t be true.
4) Tish is a “fraudulent AG” (basis?), therefore, it can’t be true.
No one gave a defense based on the merits, perhaps because IT IS TRUE?
I listened to one minute of her stupidty. She says trump got a $22M loan for a building in DC that he later sold for like $300M. Sounds like if i was a banker I’d love to dish out such loans. Anyhow she goes onto say why is this wrong? Because it took away funds from other much needed projects and buildings by other small busniesses. That is so laughable. Do you really think that a bank only has x amount of money and that if they lend to trump they have less to lend to others? Gimme a break. Noone got hurt form this. Such a wasted stupidty
Poor, poor Trump. He gets picked on ALL the time when he never did anything remotely wrong to deserve it.
His defense? “if you can’t sing well, sing loud”.
You rock Trump! Start yelling right away – no one even has to listen to what the words are. You will get all the sympathy in the world from the cult you run
BOMBSHELL NEWS. But Fox not covering it.
Letitia James is nothing more than a political hack who blatantly abuses her prosecutorial authority to go after her political opponents. The NRA, Andrew Cuomo, and now the Trump family. I guess this is what the people of New York want considering that she’s voted in year after year.
In some years, 1/3 of all cash he claimed to have was in fact held as restricted funds by his partner Vornado–money he couldn’t access.
Vornado Partnership:
Mr. Trump’s statements misrepresented his holdings of cash, cash equivalent, and marketable securities. Most notably, for several years, included in his “cash” were the amounts in the Vornado Partnership Interests in which Mr. Trump had a minority stake and did not control. In some years these restricted funds accounted for almost one-third of all the cash reported by Mr. Trump. For example, they accounted for $24 million of the total $76 million in cash reported for 2018. Mr. Trump was well aware of the restricted and limited nature of his 30% interest because he personally took part in extensive, contentious litigation regarding these partnerships in which control over partnership-held cash and partnership business choices were expressly addressed.
The Republicans knew he was a snake when they let him in