A lawsuit filed by the New York attorney general is former President Trump’s latest legal headache and arguably his most personal, as it targets both his business and his image as a skilled negotiator.
The lawsuit sparked a furious response from Trump, but many Republicans believe it could ultimately solidify Republican support as he considers whether to run for president in 2024.
“They put me down for years with that stuff. And now they find out that I have very little debt – very, very little – a lot of money,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity this week. “We have a great business and we have some of the best assets in the world. But I went through, they were putting me down, you know, these people all the time. There is something wrong with them. I really believe they hate our country.
Trump spent days posting criticism of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) on his Truth Social platform, calling her ‘racist’ and sharing old videos of James pledging to sue him if he was elected.
The lawsuit is personal for Trump, who has built his political brand largely on the image that he is a successful businessman capable of striking shrewd deals to build a financial empire. Trump has shielded details of his finances in recent years, breaking a decades-old tradition of refusing to release his tax records during his campaign trail.
In a civil lawsuit, James alleges that Trump, with the help of his adult children and leaders of the Trump Organization, falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain loans on more favorable terms and to obtain benefits. tax. The lawsuit alleges that Trump and his company “knowingly and intentionally created more than 200 false and misleading asset valuations” from 2011 to 2021.
As punishment, James seeks a five-year ban on Trump buying commercial real estate in New York or applying for loans and a lifetime ban on Trump and his three eldest children – Don Jr., Ivanka and Eric – to sit on the board of directors of any New York company.
But the allegations don’t seem to bother many Republicans the way recent investigations into Trump’s conduct around the 2020 election or his handling of classified documents have.
Many GOP members see the lawsuit as a political move, pointing to comments James made during her 2018 campaign in which she made Trump a focal point and vowed to hold him accountable.
A Republican operative with ties to Trump’s orbit has ruled out any potential political fallout.
The agent felt that Trump’s base and the GOP as a whole are already inclined to believe that Democrats, and James in particular, are on the hunt for the former president. The lawsuit only reinforces this belief.
“The @January6thCmte investigation has stalled. The Mar-a-Lago raid is being exposed as a DOJ/FBI political operation. So now NY AG Letitia James has made a last ditch effort to salvage attempts to ‘recover’ the President Trump. It never works,” tweeted Steven Cheung, a former Trump campaign adviser.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), head of the influential House Republican Study Committee, dismissed James’ lawsuit as “illegitimate” while sharing a video compilation of James calling Trump an “illegitimate president.”
Former Attorney General William Barr, a former staunch Trump ally who has been more willing to criticize his former boss in recent months, said he viewed James’ trial as an “excess” that “will make people more sympathetic to Trump”.
“It’s hard for me not to conclude that this is political blockbuster work,” Barr said on Fox News after the lawsuit was published. “I’m not even sure she has a good case against Trump himself, but what ultimately persuades me that this is a political blockbuster job is that she goes too far when ‘she’s trying to drag the kids into this.”
A New York Times poll taken before news of James’ trial was published found that 44% of voters viewed Trump favorably, the same number as a poll taken in July, underscoring his stable support among Republicans in particular.
Yet Trump’s legal troubles are undeniably piling up.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot resumes public hearings next week, and the panel could submit a final report before midterm with more damaging information about the inaction of Trump that day.
There’s Georgia’s ongoing investigation into an effort to come up with a slate of alternate voters who allegedly overturned the state’s 2020 election results, which has drawn several Trump allies.
And perhaps most serious is the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office following an FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home last month. A special master appointed to sift through documents seized in the case has pressed Trump’s legal team to support the former president’s claims that he declassified documents he took with him.
The various investigations pose not only legal threats to Trump, but also political threats as well as voters wondering whether to move on to another candidate for the 2024 election.
“Elections are ultimately business decisions,” said a former Trump campaign aide, acknowledging that at some point the surveys might become too much for voters to accept.