Savannah Hulsey Pointer, FISM News
Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James in federal court over her prolonged investigation into his business practices.
According to Fox News, the long-running civil investigation was met with a suit in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of New York where the former president argues that the inquiry, which has stretched on for more than two years, violates Trump’s constitutional rights.
“Letitia James targets President Trump with a callous disregard for the ethical and moral obligations she swore to abide by when she became Attorney General,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a statement Monday. “She has shortchanged the state by commencing this partisan investigation and has forever tarnished the sanctity of her office.”
Additionally, Trump’s legal team stated that they intend to “not only hold her accountable for her blatant constitutional violations but to stop her bitter crusade to punish her political opponents in its tracks.”
The lawsuit includes language over the most recent request of James’ office, that Trump be deposed on Jan. 7 as Hames delves further into whether the Trump Organization has misled banks or tax offices about his assets. The accusation is that the former president could be over-inflating the worth of his assets in order to gain better terms on loans, or, conversely, minimizing them to allow for tax savings.
James’ wide scope of investigation over the past two years without direct evidence of illegal activity by Trump or the organization has led many to question if the left-leaning AG could be making moves motivated by political affiliation rather than justice.
“The investigations commenced by James are in no way connected to legitimate law enforcement goals, but rather, are merely a thinly-veiled effort to publicly malign Trump and his associates. Her mission is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent,” the 30-page complaint reads.
The attorney general released a statement castigating Trump for the suit after news broke about its filing, saying that this was a tactic to “delay” her probe.
“The Trump Organization has continually sought to delay our investigation into its business dealings and now Donald Trump and his namesake company have filed a lawsuit as an attempted collateral attack on that investigation. To be clear, neither Mr. Trump nor the Trump Organization get to dictate if and where they will answer for their actions,” she continued. “Our investigation will continue undeterred because no one is above the law, not even someone with the name Trump.”
According to POLITICO, Trump’s suit is requesting that the court issue several injunctions, including that the attorney general “immediately cease or, at a minimum, appropriately limit all ongoing investigations” and that James be prohibited from taking part in any civil or criminal action against Trump or his business complex, citing bias against the former president.
Included in the Trump organization’s complaint is a reference to a 2017 comment by James when she was serving as the New York City Public advocate when she said, “I’ve been leading the resistance against Donald Trump in NYC and will only continue to do so in every way possible.” The New York attorney general also vowed to aggressively investigate Trump during an interview in 2018 while preparing to take office.