New York Attorney General Letitia James announced at a Wednesday morning press conference that her office was filing suit against Donald Trump and his children, claiming they enriched themselves through fraud.
At the press event, James accused the former president, his family, and his organization of “persistent and repeated business fraud.“
The civil lawsuit, filed Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks a $250 million judgment and a prohibition on any of the Trumps leading a company in the state of New York.
Among other allegations, the suit claims that the former president’s Florida estate and golf resort, Mar-a-Lago, was valued as high as $739 million, but should have been valued at around one-tenth that amount, at $75 million. The suit says that higher valuation was “based on the false premise that it was unrestricted property and could be developed for residential use even though Mr. Trump himself signed deeds donating his residential development rights and sharply restricting changes to the property.”
James is referring her findings to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who could possibly open a criminal investigation into bank fraud, according to a footnote in the lawsuit.
According to the Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, 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,” she stated. “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.”
James rejected a settlement offer from the Trump organization last month.
Trump reported to New York in August for a deposition, though he repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment during the interview. The attorney general’s investigation started in 2019 after former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified before Congress that financial statements from the Trump organization inflated the former president’s assets’ values in order to obtain more favorable loans.