“Another Witch Hunt by a racist Attorney General, Letitia James, who failed in her run for Governor, getting almost zero support from the public, and now is doing poorly against Law & Order A.G. candidate, highly respected Michael Henry,” Trump stated Wedneday in a put up on his social media website, Truth Social, referring to James’ Republican opponent.
“I never thought this case would be brought – until I saw her really bad poll numbers,” Trump added. “She is a fraud who campaigned on a ‘get Trump’ platform, despite the fact that the city is one of the crime and murder disasters of the world under her watch!”
James dismissed the assaults and Trump’s argument that her case is politically motivated, noting that courts have rejected the claims earlier than.
“With regards to the name calling, as you know, they basically attempted to delay this investigation. Two judges have dismissed those claims of a witch hunt. So I give no credence to the names that he has referred to me,” she stated at a press convention at her decrease Manhattan workplace the place she introduced the go well with.
James, who beforehand served as New York City public advocate, gained her workplace in 2018, after her predecessor, Eric Schneiderman, resigned in a home violence scandal. During that marketing campaign, she made it clear that Trump can be her high goal — remarks which have left the previous president, a New York native, stewing ever since.
“I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president,” James stated in a video during the campaign. “I believe that this president is incompetent. I believe that this president is ill-equipped to serve in the highest office of this land. And I believe that he is an embarrassment to all that we stand for.” She went on to say Trump ought to be indicted on legal expenses and charged with obstruction of justice.
She even pulled Trump into her victory speech, saying her win “was about that man in the White House who can’t go a day without threatening our fundamental rights.”
“As the next attorney general of his home state,” James stated, “I will be shining a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings, and every dealing, demanding truthfulness at every turn.”
James toned down her rhetoric, to a level, after taking workplace and launching an investigation into Trump — in addition to combating him in courtroom on a number of coverage issues whereas he was in the White House. Trump, alternatively, solely ramped up his personal assaults.
He lashed out at James and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a sequence of tweets in 2019, accusing them, amongst different issues, of “harassing all of my New York businesses in search of anything at all they can find to make me look as bad as possible.” He complained about how his firm and kids have been “spending a fortune on lawyers.”
James, who was solely referred to in the barrage as Cuomo’s AG, responded that she would “follow the facts of any case, wherever they lead.”
“Make no mistake: No one is above the law, not even the President,” she stated. “P.S. My name is Letitia James. (You can call me Tish.).”
As James’ investigation progressed, the authorized and verbal sparring escalated. Trump sued James final yr searching for to halt her probe, alleging it was “baseless” and motivated solely by her want to harass a political opponent. A decide dismissed the suit in May.
At a marketing campaign rally in Texas in January, Trump known as for enormous protests if James and three different Black prosecutors investigating him “do anything illegal.” He stated: “These prosecutors are vicious, horrible people. They’re racists and they’re very sick — they’re mentally sick.”
But Trump’s tirades haven’t swayed the courts.
He was held in contempt of courtroom in April and fined $10,000 a day for refusing to show over monetary paperwork James requested in her investigation. The contempt order was lifted after he agreed to show over the paperwork — however James stated in her go well with Wednesday that paperwork lined by the subpoena which he by no means turned over have been discovered at his Mar-a-Lago property.
Trump misplaced one other courtroom skirmish when he was ordered to appear for questioning beneath oath in James’ investigation, dropping an try to dam the deposition. He sat for the deposition on the AG’s workplace final month, however took the Fifth Amendment and declined to reply each query.
“When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice,” Trump stated final month.
Later Wednesday, she despatched out a fundraising electronic mail to marketing campaign supporters: “These men think they can rattle me and scare me off my path, but the truth is, they have only reaffirmed why I went into this work in the first place.”
James hopes to have the final phrase in the longstanding conflict if she triumphs in her case, which seeks to bar him and his household from being officers of any enterprise in New York and ban them from taking part in actual property transactions or getting loans in the state.
“The complaint demonstrates that Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and to cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us,” she informed reporters.
“Claiming you have money you do not have does not amount to the art of the deal. It’s the art of the steal,” she stated. “No one, no one is above the law.”
