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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 DC.
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 Organisation. 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.
James said Trump “falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars.”
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.
“This investigation revealed that Donald Trump engaged in years of illegal conduct to inflate his net worth, to deceive banks and the people of the great state of New York,” James said at the news conference. “Claiming you have money that you do not have does not amount to the art of the deal. It’s the art of the steal.”
The lawsuit
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 Organisation’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 Organisation from entering into commercial real estate acquisitions for five years and obtaining loans from banks in New York for five years.
She also seeks to 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.
Finally, she 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.
This comes amid a swirl of unprecedented legal challenges for a former president, including an FBI investigation into Trump’s handling of classified records and inquiries into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
At the same time, the FBI is continuing to investigate Trump’s storage of sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and a special grand jury in Georgia is investigating whether Trump and others attempted to influence state election officials.
In May, Trump paid $110,000 in fines after he was held in contempt of court for being slow to respond to a subpoena James’ office issued seeking documents and other evidence.
The contempt finding was lifted in June after Trump and his lawyers submitted paperwork showing they had made a good faith effort to find relevant documents.
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