Defiant Letitia James, Relishing Place on Trump’s ‘Enemies List,’ Insists He Lacks Evidence To Convict Her for Fraud

New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, is striking a defiant tone even as her legal troubles mount across multiple fronts in President Trump’s second term in office. Ms. James recently had her $500 million civil fraud verdict against Mr. Trump overturned as an unconstitutionally excessive fine. She tells CBS News’s Marcia Kramer that she is on the president’s “enemies list … because we brought a case against him.” That case, a civil action, alleged that Mr. Trump, his two adult sons, and their family business engaged in “persistent fraud” by overstating the value of their real estate properties to secure better loan terms. Judge Arthur Engoron agreed on summary judgment, finding that the Trumps’ business practices “shocked the conscience.” He imposed an exceptionally large penalty as well as restrictions on the family’s business dealings in New York.New York’s first appellate court, the Appellate Division, First Department, after more than 300 days of deliberations, erased that penalty but kept in place the underlying verdict as well as the restrictions against the Trump Organization. Both Ms. James and Mr. Trump have appealed the appellate verdict, which was a byzantine and fractured one. The ruling punted the question to New York’s top tribunal, the court of appeals. One judge, David Friedman, would have dismissed the case entirely.The appeals court ruled, “While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award to the state … the court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”The reversal of the judgment against Mr. Trump amounted to a significant setback for Ms. James, who ran for office vowing to shine a “bright light” into Mr. Trump’s real estate dealings. She alleged that he engaged in lying, cheating, and staggering fraud” and that while “he may have authored the ‘Art of the Deal,’ our case revealed that his business was based on the art of the steal.”Ms. James, though, has more to worry about than just preserving her signature but now-precarious legal victory against the 47th president. She is also the target of a criminal investigation for mortgage fraud. The allegation of possible wrongdoing came first from the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, William Pulte, the heir to a home construction fortune. The Department of Justice accepted Mr. Pulte’s referral and has launched its own investigation. That probe is in the hands of an ally of Mr. Trump, Ed Martin. He serves as the special attorney for mortgage fraud as well as the head of the Weaponization Working Group convened by Attorney General Pam Bondi. The prosecutor is accused of listing a modest Norfolk home as her primary residence, listing her father as her husband to secure better loan terms, and representing that her Brooklyn brownstone has four units rather than five. Mr. Martin was last month spotted inspecting that property from the street. The New York Post reports that Ms. James is facing $500 in fines for erecting a too-high fence in front of that property. She has a court date of October 8 to contest that fine. The fence is five foot, six inches tall, well above the maximum of four feet. Ms. James’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, called Mr. Martin’s visit a “truly bizarre, made-for-media stunt.” Ms. James tells CBS in that same interview: “In order to engage in mortgage fraud, you need intent. And there was no mortgage fraud on behalf of myself or any other individual. Mortgage fraud is a rare, rare, rare type of investigation and indictment, and the facts are not substantiated.” Mr. Lowell, insists that the accusations are “threadbare” and “cherry-picked” and amount to a “revenge tour.”Ms. James contends to Ms. Kramer that “at the end of the day, we all know that the mortgage fraud is baseless and it’s nothing more than an attempt to engage in retribution against all the actions I’ve taken against Donald Trump and this administration.” Ms. James often boasts that she has sued the Trump administration more than 100 times, in addition to the fraud case.

Defiant Letitia James, Relishing Place on Trump’s ‘Enemies List,’ Insists He Lacks Evidence To Convict Her for Fraud

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