Why Donald Trump Is Suing The NY Attorney General
Donald Trump and his businesses have filed over 3,500 lawsuits over the last 30 years (per USA Today). He's sued his niece Mary Trump (via CNN). He's sued Twitter, Google, and Facebook (per Reuters). And now New York Attorney General Letitia James is the latest on the list; Trump wants a court order to stop her civil tax fraud investigation into Trump's businesses and to stop her involvement in any other civil or criminal investigations into him or his company (per The New York Times)
The lawsuit says that James, who is a Democrat, is "guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent." And that she's engaged in a "frivolous witch hunt," and that "her mission is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent."
Donald Trump wants the James investigation into Trump Organization to stop
At the heart of the two-year investigation that Letitia James is leading is determining if the Trump Organization manipulated the presentation of the values of their assets — making the assets seem less valuable to get tax breaks and then making the assets seem more valuable to banks for better loan terms (per NPR).
In a statement in response to the lawsuit, James said, "The Trump Organization has continually sought to delay our investigation into its business dealings and now Donald Trump and his namesake company have filed a lawsuit as an attempted collateral attack on that investigation" (per NPR).
It's hardly been a secret that there's no love lost between James and Trump. After James won the attorney general position in 2018, she said "We're going to definitely sue him. We're going to be a real pain in the ass. He's going to know my name personally" (per The New York Times). That certainly seems to be the case.