New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, is refusing to dismiss the civil lawsuit against President Trump that resulted in a $450-plus million penalty, writing on Tuesday that the case will not interfere with Trump’s upcoming duties as president. Trump’s move to get the case thrown out is still awaiting a decision from New York’s appeals court.

“The ordinary burdens of civil litigation do not impede the President’s official duties in a way that violates the U.S. Constitution,” the deputy solicitor general, Judith Vale, wrote to Trump’s defense attorney, John Sauer, in her letter, published on Tuesday.  

On November 26, Mr. Sauer, who argued Trump’s landmark immunity case before the U.S. Supreme Court, asked Ms. James to drop her case, calling it a “flashpoint of national partisan division.” He argued a dismissal is “necessary for the health of our Republic for the strife and lawfare to end,” as the Sun reported. Mr. Trump recently announced he’s tapping Mr. Sauer to be America’s solicitor general.

Ms. Vale disagreed, writing, “This civil enforcement action was filed following a multiyear investigation by the Office, and multiple courts have rejected claims that the investigation or action were brought in anything other than good faith.” 

In September of 2022, Ms. James filed a lawsuit against Trump, his two adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and two veteran Trump Organization employees, the former chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, and former controller, Jeff McConney, of having inflated Trump’s net worth and various assets and falsified financial statements in a decades-long scheme to gain lower interest rates from banks and more favorable insurance policies by “as much $2.2 billion a year.” 

The alleged fraud included, for example, the misrepresentation of the size of Trump’s gilded penthouse apartment at his iconic Trump Tower. In every financial statement “from at least 2014 to 2016”, Ms. James wrote in her appeals brief, Trump valued the triplex “as if it were 30,000 square feet. But the apartment was only 10,996 square feet.” And valuing the apartment, she added, “as if it were nearly three times larger than its actual size overstated its value by up to $200 million.”

Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over the case in the lower court, found the Trumps guilty before the trial began, ruling against the family business in what is called a partial pre-trial summary judgment. A trial was then held to determine, among other things, how much money Trump would owe New York state as a penalty for the “fraud” in which Judge Engoron found he had engaged. 

During eleven week-long trial, where over 40 witnesses testified, including Trump himself, who proclaimed his innocence on the witness stand, the judge issued a gag order on Trump after he referred to the judge’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, as, without verification, “Schumer’s girlfriend”, causing Ms. Greenfield to receive numerous threats and hate-mail, also containing anti semitic messages.    

Judge Engoron awarded the state more than $355 million dollars, and set interest payments exceeding $100 million. The roughly $455 million judgment increases by $111,984 per day, $3.4 million per month and $40.9 million per year, based on a 9 percent annual interest rate, as calculated by the penalty calculator, created by Associated Press journalist Mike Sislak. For a relatively small, privately held company like the Trump Organization, it is a gargantuan fine.

From the onset, when Judge Engoron found the Trumps liable for fraud in his partial pre-trial summary judgment, it was apparent that the case would be decided on appeal. Indeed, President Trump, his co-defendants and his family business, the Trump Organization, swiftly appealed the gigantic judgment at the Appellate Division First Department. The Manhattan court lowered the bond they needed to post in order to appeal the case, to $175 million after the defense team argued the Trumps could not pay the full sum. At the eleventh hour, Trump got a loan from the California billionaire Don Hankey, a longtime Trump supporter known as the “king of subprime car loans”, and Ms. James was unable to proceed with seizing Trump’s assets. Even though the bond amount was lowered, Trump would still be on the hook for the entire half-billion dollar judgment should he lose his appeal.

In late September, Mr. Sauer fiercely disputed the verdict in front of the Manhattan appeals court. Among several arguments he made, he compared the case to a third world-style political prosecution that would never have been brought against any other defendant, and that the case would deter companies from doing business in New York. Several of the five judges on the panel raised skeptical questions about the case, particularly in regard to the size of the $455 million judgment the lower court judge had imposed. 

In her Tuesday letter, Ms. Vale argued that there is “no basis” for her office to dismiss the case, principally because civil litigations, unlike criminal cases, are exempt from presidential immunity and do not violate the Constitution. Most notably, she argued, Trump’s conduct does not stem from the time he served as the 45th president. 

“The final judgment,” Ms. Vale found, “concerns only business conduct undertaken by entities that are part of the Trump Organization and individual defendants who were acting on behalf of the Trump Organization. The judgment thus does not concern any conduct related to Mr. Trump’s first term as President.” 

Ms. Vale further argued that the alleged fraudulent actions were “unofficial” actions, meaning they do not relate to presidential duties in any way. Neither does the case, she pressed, affect his upcoming affairs as president.        

“Nor does it implicate any conduct that Mr. Trump might undertake after his upcoming inauguration. Presidents do not have immunity from civil lawsuits arising from unofficial conduct, and such lawsuits may proceed while the President is in office.” 

Ms. Vale also found no reason to dismiss the case in light of his upcoming inauguration ceremony either, writing that “Mr. Trump’s upcoming inauguration as the next President of the United States has no bearing on the pendency of defendants’ appeal in this action.” 

She insisted, “This civil enforcement action is not a criminal action, and (the) Supreme Court did not impose any criminal sanction on Mr. Trump or any other defendant.” 

Referring to other cases, brought against Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith, and Manhattan’s district attorney, Alvin Bragg, Ms. Vale found that they “are irrelevant here.” 

After Trump won the presidency on November 5, Ms. James said, without referring to her case directly, that she would “continue to stand tall in the face of injustice, revenge, retribution.” She had campaigned for her office promising to go after Trump, calling him “a con man” and “a carnival barker.”  

The appeals court has yet to rule on the case. Should the appeals court rule in favor of Trump and dismiss the verdict, Ms. James could take her lawsuit to the highest court in the state, the Court of Appeals. The same process applies to Trump. In short, the battle between Ms. James and the Trump Organization will not be decided for some time.