Judging Freedom - Trump lawsuit against NY AG dismissed

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Judge dismisses Trump federal lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James over her probe of business https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/27/judge...#TrumpSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, May 27, 2022. It's about 1.30 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Former President Donald Trump is not having a very good week with respect to rulings against him by the courts. So the Attorney General of New York, you've heard me talk about this before, Letitia James, brought an action against the Trump Organization, President Trump and his older adult children to compel them to become forthcoming with respect to documents. They basically told her to go take a hike. She brought an action before a judge.

The judge said, cough up the documents. Trump refused. The attorney general said, not only cough up the documents, but sit for a deposition. Trump's people told her to take a hike. The judge said, show up. All of that, the documents, her right to see them, and the oral examination under oath whereby former President Trump himself and his children, Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, must be deposed. All of that was appealed to the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the Appellate Division, which sits in panels of three, four, or five, in this case a panel of four, ruled unanimously that the Attorney General is entitled to the documents and she's entitled to the depositions. There's no automatic right to appeal this. The former president can ask for permission to appeal to the highest court in New York called the New York State Court of Appeals. It's unlikely that they'll get involved. What is this based on? This is based on inside information given to the attorney general by the former chief legal officer of the Trump organization, which, when viewed by the attorney general, caused her to conclude and caused a federal judge to conclude that it is more likely than not that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization engaged in bank fraud, making material misrepresentations to banks in order to get loans, insurance fraud, making material misstatements of fact to insurance companies in order to insure assets for more than they were worth, and the worst thing you can do, tax fraud, making material misrepresentations to federal, local,

and state taxing authorities. All of that was resolved on Wednesday when the four-judge appellate panel said, cough up the documents and show up for the deposition, the examination before trial under oath. Why are we discussing this today? Well, while all of this litigation was going on, the former president, I'm smiling because, as you know, I know him. I have not discussed these cases with him, and I know how he loves to resort to the courts, filed a complaint in federal court in Albany seeking to restrain the Attorney General from investigating the Trump Organization, him and his three older children. Today, just an hour ago, a federal judge dismissed that complaint. So these are two huge setbacks for former President Trump. None of this has to do with his time in office.

All of it has to do with his work in and around New York City before he became the President of the United States. None of this is criminal. These investigations or this investigation being conducted by the Attorney General of New York is a civil investigation. If she decides to sue him, she will ask a court and a jury to punish him for his behavior financially and to award the state the monies that he should have paid in taxes. That would at least be the theory of her lawsuit. There is still a criminal investigation involving all of this in New York City being conducted by the District Attorney of Manhattan. However, he has dismissed the grand jury before which he was presenting evidence,

so it's unlikely that that investigation will go anywhere. And there are two other criminal investigations of the president having to do with his behavior in and around January 6th while he was in the White House having nothing to do with this. So look, if you like the president, the good news is this is not going to put him in jail and this is not going to keep him off a ballot. If you don't like the president, the good news is he's going to have to answer under oath for all the shenanigans he was involved in while developing real estate in New York in the years preceding his presidency. As I've said before, with Donald Trump, you can't predict the outcome, but one thing you can predict, there's more to come. Judge Napolitano, have a great holiday weekend, my dear friends. Thank you

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