Letitia James: the fearless attorney general
threatening Trump’s business
New York’s top prosecutor will take on her biggest
case yet – a fraud trial that risks foundation of Trump’s real estate holdings
Edward
Helmore in New York
Mon 2 Oct
2023 12.00 BST
New York
attorney general Letitia James has never shied away from taking on powerful
adversaries – from the National Rifle Association to former New York governor
Andrew Cuomo.
On Monday
she will take on her biggest case yet: a fraud trial that threatens the very
foundation of Donald Trump’s New York real estate empire.
Critics
have accused the 64-year-old career prosecutor of using her office, with 1,700
staff and over 700 assistant attorneys general, for political purposes. To
others, the Democrat is a heroic figure: the first woman elected as New York’s
attorney general and the first Black person to serve in the role. A fearless
prosecutor who has taken on cases others would walk away from.
Like Trump,
“Tish” James was born and raised in New York City. It’s about the only thing
they have in common. Raised with her seven siblings in Brooklyn, James attended
public schools in the city before getting her law degree at Howard University
in Washington DC.
She started
her law career as a public defender before entering New York politics as a
councilmember and then as public advocate, the first Black woman to hold the
watchdog role. James’s passions were clear from the start – she filed a record
number of suits on behalf of tenants, seniors and people with disabilities.
James became New York state attorney general in 2018.
Few think
her ambitions stop there. Top state prosecutor has often been the jumping off
point for a run for New York’s governorship, which James briefly attempted last
year.
The Trump
trial will thrust James further into the spotlight and she is off to an
impressive start. James has already claimed one victory in the case. Last week,
the New York judge Arthur Engoron ruled the real estate developer had committed
fraud for years as he built his empire by inflating the value of his holdings.
In an early win for James, Engoron revoked the business licenses of Trump and
his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, essentially barring them from
doing business in the state.
This week,
Engoron will hear arguments on a potential fine, which could be at least $250m.
“I come
from a long line of very strong, tough women. We stick to our principles and
stand up for what we believe in, which is fundamental fairness, which is my
raison d’être,” James told Elle Magazine in 2017.
As attorney
general, she has worked for more funding for pre-trial services, the reform of
bail laws for minor offenses, treatments for the mental health crisis, cracking
down on ghost guns and defending the state’s gun laws restricting the public
carrying of firearms.
James has
also said she wants to prioritize antitrust investigations and consumer
protections, and focus on reducing tenant evictions amid skyrocketing rents in
the city and state.
Last year,
James suspended her campaign for New York governor, saying she wanted to
“finish the job” with her ongoing investigations, including overseeing a sexual
harassment investigation into former governor Cuomo that led to his
resignation, an inquiry into the NRA and fraudulent financial practices of the
former president.
In
interviews during her campaign, James said that not pursuing evidence of
wrongdoing by Trump or the NRA would have been a “dereliction of my duty” and
rejected claims that her legal pursuits were not on behalf of New Yorkers but
her “own personal ambitions”.
“I make no
apologies, because this is who I am, and this is what I do,” James added.
On the same
day that she ended her campaign, reports said she was looking to sit Trump for
a deposition as part of her civil investigation into his business practices.
Trump has called James “a renegade and out of control prosecutor”, dismissed
the case as “crazy” and a “witch-hunt”, and invoked his fifth amendment right
against self-incrimination 400 times.
Trump
maintains his innocence and his lawyers are appealing the pre-trial ruling. But
outside observers believe this case will be a real test of Trump’s – often
successful – bluster.
Andrew
Lieb, a real estate attorney and legal political analyst, says James is doing
no more or less than what attorneys general do. The fact that Trump received a
pre-trial ruling in his fraud trial shows just how clear the case against him
was.
“He was so
outrageous, pompous and immune to order and business practices that someone had
to do something about it. It was like spitting and saying it’s raining,” Lieb
said. “It’s not like he took a $10m property and said it was worth $11m. He
took a $10m property and said it was worth over $100m.”
James, he
says, will go down as an effective attorney general. “She’s effective in that
she won. No one remembers how you played the game, they just remember that you
won.”
This article was amended on 2 October 2023 to
correct the wording about the claimed motives for James’s legal pursuits.
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