![]() Trump nor the Trump Organization get to dictate if and where they will answer for their actions. “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,” the attorney general said in a statement. James on Monday said the lawsuit was an attempt to impede her efforts to investigate Trump’s company. The probe is being conducted parallel with a criminal investigation being carried out by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr. The move comes two years into James’s investigation into whether Trump’s business has illegally inflated its assets to attract investors and lenders and win tax breaks. The lawsuit was first reported by The New York Times. District Court for the Northern District of New York asks a judge to put a complete halt to James’ investigation into Trump’s business practices. “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.” “The investigations commenced by James are in no way connected to legitimate law enforcement goals, but rather, are merely a thinly-veiled effort to publicly malign Trump and his associates,” the complaint reads. Trump’s lawyers in the complaint attacked the investigation as an attempt to undermine him politically and charged James with violating the former president’s constitutional rights. Nothing about her civil case would prevent them from proceeding with criminal charges.Former President Trump filed a federal lawsuit on Monday against New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) in an effort to block her civil probe into his business. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Internal Revenue Service. She has, however, referred the case for potential criminal investigation to the U.S. James may have selected civil claims because she lacks authority as attorney general to bring criminal charges of this nature. Jurors would further be told in jury instructions that they may draw from his silence what is known as an “adverse inference,” that is, a conclusion that the answer would have been harmful to his case. ![]() A jury could be told that when asked to explain what appeared to be inflated assets, Trump took the Fifth. But in a civil case, those rules do not apply. Revealing that fact to a jury is itself a violation of the Fifth Amendment. In a criminal case, a jury will not be told that a person refused to answer questions on the basis that his response might incriminate him. In this case, Trump and his son Eric Trump reportedly invoked their Fifth Amendment rights repeatedly during their sworn depositions. A witness’s invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination may be admitted into evidence in a civil trial. In addition to the lower standard of proof in a civil case, another other advantage exists in this case over criminal charges. Documents don’t lie and documents don’t forget. But witnesses are subject to cross-examination that can attack their ability to observe or remember what they saw. In a case involving violent crime, proof requires eye witnesses who can testify about what they observed. Falsehoods can be proved by showing inconsistent statements about asset values between documents. ![]() Proving these falsehoods by a preponderance of the evidence is made even easier in a case that rests largely on documents. The complaint is replete with descriptions of other properties, the values of which were grossly overstated. In fact, James alleges, its value is $75 million. Among the allegedly inflated assets contained in statements of financial condition, Trump valued his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida at $739 million, and failed to disclose restrictions that prevented its sale for residential use. The 220-page complaint details what James says are fraudulent valuations. ![]() According to the complaint, Trump inflated the value of his assets by billions of dollars to fraudulently obtain loans, insurance coverage and tax benefits. The complaint alleges that Trump, three of his children, the Trump Organization and others engaged in ten years of financial fraud. The fact that the legal action is civil in nature does not diminish the magnitude of its claims.
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