New York Attorney General Letitia James Files Massive Fraud Lawsuit Against Donald Trump & Kids

New York Attorney General Letitia James is throwing the book at Donald Trump, his children and other employees of the Trump Organization by filing suit against them for alleged fraudulent activity her office has been investigating.

She indicated several violations of state laws that Trump and others carried out to misrepresent the values of many properties he owned, and thus inflating his net worth in the process.

On a state level, they are being accused of “falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, insurance fraud,” as well as conspiracy to carry these crimes out.

The Attorney General’s office has also said it uncovered evidence of the federal crimes of bank fraud and issuing false statements to financial institutions, which will be referred to the IRS and the Southern District of New York.

These false valuations were reportedly used by Trump, his children Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and company executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney, to obtain favorable loans and insurance premiums from financial institutions.

James said that the Trump Organization “created and used more than 200 misleading asset valuations,” going back to 2011, and touched on several tactics they employed to fudge the numbers.

She said they made use of vague and shifting methodologies to determine valuations in their financial statements every year, and on several occasions ignored legal restrictions that would have narrowed down their properties’ values in loan applications.

One example the AG discussed was Trump’s infamous Trump Tower penthouse apartment on 5th Avenue. She said that Trump overstated the square footage of his gilded apartment by around three times, saying it was 30,000 square feet when it was only slightly over 10,000. She also said Weisselberg conceded that the apartment’s size was “overstated” and that it resulted in a $200 million inflation of value during his deposition.

She also briefly touched on alleged fraud in connection with Trump’s resort Mar-A-Lago, and several golf courses around the country as well. The Attorney General’s office is seeking several reliefs from the organization. First of all, they are hoping to bar Trump and any of his children from serving as a Director or Officer of a New York-based company permanently.

They are also hoping to install an independent monitor in the organization to handle financial valuations moving forward, and are seeking to ban the organization from engaging in commercial real estate or applying for a loan in New York for five years.

It’s still up to a judge whether all of these punishments will actually be carried out against the organization, but the AG’s office seems to have gathered compelling evidence for its case.

James wrapped up her speech by adding that this alleged financial abuse over many years is “a tale of two justice systems: one for ordinary working people, and one for the elite.”

She pushed back against claims that the investigation was politically motivated by noting that it only began when Michael Cohen testified about financial misconduct at the Organization.

“Claiming you have money you do not have, is that the art of the deal? It’s the art of the steal,” James also said.