New York Attorney General Letitia James is “losing the war” against former President Donald Trump in his civil fraud case, attorney and legal analyst Jonathan Turley said on Saturday.
The former president and others associated with The Trump Organization were found liable by New York Judge Arthur Engoron in February for misleading lenders and insurance companies to obtain more favorable terms. The order stems from a lawsuit brought by James who investigated Trump’s organization for years before bringing the lawsuit against him in September 2022.
Trump, the GOP’s presidential nominee, has decried the lawsuit and his nearly half a billion in financial penalties as a form of “election inference.” His lawyers appealed the ruling to New York’s intermediate appellate court, arguing in part that the size of the penalties was “draconian” and that some of the allegations brought against Trump were outside the state’s statute of limitation, meaning they should have never been brought to trial.
Meanwhile, a five-judge panel heard arguments from both sides of the case on Thursday where a pair of judges appeared to hint at being receptive to some of Trump’s arguments, including that the entities Trump is accused of defrauding did not lose money or were otherwise harmed by his actions.
In an opinion column published by The Hill on Saturday, titled, “Letitia James may be winning lawfare but losing the war,” Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School who has been supportive of Trump in his legal cases, discussed the case.
While noting several cases James has worked on as an attorney general, Turley wrote that James could be “losing the war” in the civil fraud case as her office “faced openly skeptical justices” this week in a New York appeals court.
“In appellate arguments this week, James’s office faced openly skeptical justices who raised the very arguments that some of us have made for years about the ludicrous fine imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron,” Turley wrote, specifically mentioning Justice David Friedman and Justice Peter Moulton.
Friedman had noted that the law James used to bring the lawsuit “is supposed to protect the market and the consumers—I don’t see it here.”
Newsweek has reached out to James’ office via email for comment.
New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference following a verdict against former President Donald Trump in a civil fraud trial on February 16 in New York City. James is “losing the war” against Trump in his civil fraud case, attorney and legal analyst Jonathan Turley said on Saturday.
Michael M. Santiago
Meanwhile, Moulton told James’ office that “the immense penalty in this case is troubling” in which the justice asked, “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by [Engoron] to the harm that was caused here where the parties left these transactions happy?”
“The answer, of course, is the case was never about markets. It was about politics. The fact that the banks were ‘happy’ is immaterial. Happiness in New York is a political, not legal calculus,” Turley wrote in his opinion column. “In the end, James knows her audience, and it is not appellate judges. It does not matter to her if she is found to be violating the Constitution or abusing opponents. She has converted the New York legal system into a series of thrill-kills. For some judges, however, the thrill may be gone.”
However, Deputy New York Solicitor General Judith Vale responded to Moulton in court stating that although it is a large fine, “it’s a large number for a couple reasons. One, because there was a lot of fraud and illegality. That is an enormous benefit they got from this conduct.”
Moulton rebutted and said that there was “the question of mission creep.”
According to Merriam-Webster, mission creep is a term used to describe “the gradual broadening of the original objectives of a mission or organization.”
“There has to be some limitation in what the attorney general can do in interfering in these private transactions … where people don’t claim harm. So what is the limiting principle?” Moulton asked.
Vale replied that the transactions have to be “related and relevant to the business at hand, and it does have to have a capacity or tendency to deceive.”
“When you have hidden risks that hurts the market and honest participants in the market,” she said.
The New York appellate court is expected to issue its decision on Trump’s case in about a month, potentially ahead of Election Day on November 5. Depending on the outcome of the appeals ruling, either side could also petition the state’s highest court to take up the case.
The fraud suit is one of several pending legal matters against Trump as he runs for a second term in the White House. In May, a New York jury convicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsified business documents. Trump who maintains his innocence in the case is awaiting his sentencing.
