It was in September 2022 when New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a sweeping lawsuit against Donald Trump and the Trump Organization. The civil case was rather devastating: The state attorney general’s office pointed to more than 200 instances of alleged fraud over 10 years, announced that it was seeking massive civil penalties against the Republican and his business.
The case was a striking success: A New York judge assessed the evidence and ruled earlier this year that Trump and the Trump Organization did, in fact, engage in systemic business fraud. As part of his verdict, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties against Trump and his co-defendants.
The outcome is still being appealed — an appeal that might actually go well for the defendant — but in the meantime, the president-elect’s legal team apparently want New York Attorney General Letitia James to simply drop the case. Fox News Digital reported on Team Trump’s latest effort to persuade the New York Democrat, in the form of a letter from D. John Sauer, who pointed to his client’s “historic election victory.”
“President Trump has called for our Nation’s partisan strife to end, and for the contending factions to join forces for the greater good of the country,” Sauer wrote. “This call for unity extends to the legal onslaught against him and his family that permeated the most recent election cycle.”
Sauer — Trump’s choice to serve as the U.S. solicitor general — went on to tell the state attorney general that she has an opportunity to “help cure” national divisions by abandoning the case that she’s already won. The attorney added that the president-elect “has called for our Nation’s partisan strife to end.”
Whether Sauer was able to type this with a straight face is unclear.
In case readers are wondering why the fraud case won’t simply evaporate once Trump returns to the White House, as special counsel Jack Smith’s case already have, the answer is that this is a qualitatively different kind of case: Smith’s criminal prosecutions were federal, and the U.S. Justice Department has a long-standing policy that says a sitting president can’t be prosecuted. The New York case, however, is a state matter over alleged civil fraud, and it’s unaffected by the president-elect’s return to power. As for Sauer’s pitch — James should voluntarily give up on holding Trump accountable for the “good of the country” — I have a hunch the state attorney will not find this especially persuasive. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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