New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking a speedy judgment against former President Donald Trump for allegedly inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to fraudulently secure favorable loan and insurance terms for more than a decade.
In a filing Wednesday night in New York court, James argued that Trump, his sons, and his business had obtained “hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten savings and profits” and that, given the volume of evidence her office has collected, the judge should issue what’s known as a summary judgment, essentially a ruling without the trial scheduled on October 2. Trump’s camp has responded by also asking the court to rule in the case before it goes to trial — but in his favor.
The requests are the culmination of a multi-year investigation into Trump’s business dealings in New York, for which he could be on the hook for up to $250 million and be barred from doing business in the state. That investigation is a civil case and is separate from the four sets of criminal charges Trump faces that span from New York to Georgia. Together, Trump’s civil and criminal cases continue to dominate the 2024 Republican primary calendar, and his legal troubles have consumed millions of dollars of his campaign funds.
There have been no indications thus far that a judgment against Trump in the New York attorney general’s case would hurt him politically. Though a majority of Americans wanted more transparency into his business dealings while he was running for president and in office, he’s never offered much — and he hasn’t suffered for it.
For years, he refused to release his tax returns, as had become the norm for presidents and presidential candidates, apparently shielding years of tax avoidance from public scrutiny before the records were leaked. He still won the 2016 election and now enjoys a historically large lead, one that has seemed to increase with each of his criminal indictments, in the Republican…
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