Topline<\/p>\n
The Trump administration is investigating New York Attorney General Letitia James regarding the civil fraud case she brought against President Donald Trump and his company, multiple<\/a> outlets<\/a> report<\/a>, issuing a subpoena for documents and going after James as Trump still faces a $500 million fine\u2014and counting\u2014in the case as it remains pending in appeals court.<\/p>\n New York Attorney General Letitia James attends now-President Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial at the New York Supreme Court on Oct. 24, 2023.<\/p>\n Associated PressKey Facts<\/p>\n The Justice Department issued a subpoena to James\u2019 office for documents related to the civil fraud case, multiple outlets reported Friday, which The New York Times reports<\/a> is part of an investigation into whether the case violated Trump\u2019s civil rights.<\/p>\n James sued Trump, the Trump Organization and his business associates for fraud based on allegations that the president and his associates repeatedly misstated the value of their assets on financial statements for personal gain, with Judge Arthur Engoron agreeing with James and holding Trump and his co-defendants liable for fraud<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump has long denied the allegations in the case and insisted there was no wrongdoing in how assets were calculated, and has repeatedly attacked James, claiming she brought the lawsuit because she\u2019s politically biased against him and describing her as a \u201ccrook.\u201d<\/p>\n The civil fraud case is still ongoing, as a state appeals court heard Trump\u2019s appeal<\/a> in the case last September and has not yet issued a ruling over whether or not Engoron\u2019s ruling should stand.<\/p>\n Engoron ordered Trump to pay $454.2 million in the case, an amount that keeps going up as the case drags out, as approximately $111,984 in interest is added each day\u2014now ballooning the total amount Trump owes to approximately $513 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n James has strongly opposed the Trump administration\u2019s reported investigation into her, with her personal attorney Abbe Lowell saying in a statement Friday, \u201cInvestigating the fraud case Attorney General James won against President Trump and his businesses has to be the most blatant and desperate example of this administration carrying out the president\u2019s political retribution campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n What To Watch For<\/p>\n How the Trump administration\u2019s investigation into James will play out. There is no indication of any wrongdoing by James in her litigation against Trump, though it\u2019s unclear what conclusions the Trump DOJ\u2019s investigation will reach and how long the probe could take to play out. The Justice Department also reportedly issued a separate subpoena into documents regarding a lawsuit James\u2019 office successfully brought against the National Rifle Association, and the Justice Department has reportedly separately been investigating<\/a> James\u2019 personal real estate transactions.<\/p>\n Will Trump Have To Pay In The Civil Fraud Case?<\/p>\n It still remains to be seen how the appeals court will rule on Trump\u2019s appeal of the civil fraud case. The five-judge panel appeared somewhat sympathetic<\/a> to the president when they heard arguments last year and suggested they could be inclined to lower the eye-popping sum he\u2019s been ordered to pay, which one judge referred to as \u201ctroubling.\u201d It\u2019s unclear when the court\u2019s ruling will come out. Interest on the amount Trump has to pay will keep accruing until the appeals process is fully over, and he will only have to pay if the courts still find him liable for fraud after the case has been fully appealed. He has already posted a $175 million bond<\/a> in the case, after successfully persuading a court to lower the amount he immediately had to pay.<\/p>\n Forbes Valuation<\/p>\n Forbes estimates Trump\u2019s net worth<\/a> at $5.1 billion as of Friday afternoon. The president\u2019s cash pile has significantly increased<\/a> since the civil fraud ruling first came out, making him fully capable of paying the nine-figure civil fraud fine. Trump now has approximately $770 million<\/a> in liquid assets, up from approximately $413 million after Engoron\u2019s fraud ruling, with the bump largely thanks to the president\u2019s cryptocurrency holdings.<\/p>\n Key Background<\/p>\n James sued Trump and his company in 2022 for alleged fraud, claiming the president and his allies repeatedly inflated the size and value of assets in order to obtain more favorable business deals. The allegations<\/a> included false valuations for such Trump properties as Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower, where the Trump Organization exaggerated the size of Trump\u2019s penthouse even after Forbes reported<\/a> the square footage the company had been using was false. Engoron first found Trump and his allies liable for fraud even before the case went to trial, and then ruled<\/a> in February 2024, after the trial had concluded, that the fraud was committed knowingly, finding there was \u201coverwhelming evidence\u201d suggesting Trump and his allies knew the numbers they were using were false. Trump himself \u201cwas aware of many of the key facts underpinning various material fraudulent misstatements,\u201d Engoron wrote. James is one of a number of prosecutors that Trump attacked as legal cases piled up against him between his two presidential terms, and the president has long suggested he wants to get revenge on his enemies while in the White House. In addition to the New York attorney general, the Trump administration has also opened an investigation<\/a> into Jack Smith, the former special counsel who led the federal government\u2019s two criminal cases against Trump.<\/p>\n Further ReadingForbesAppeals Court Questions Trump\u2019s \u2018Troubling\u2019 $450 Million Fine In Civil Fraud CaseBy Alison Durkee<\/a>ForbesTrump Already Owes $24 Million More In Fraud Case As It\u2019s Heard On AppealBy Alison Durkee<\/a>ForbesTrump Ordered To Pay Over $350 Million In Civil Fraud Case As Judge Finds Ex-President Knowingly Committed FraudBy Alison Durkee<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline The Trump administration is investigating New York Attorney General Letitia James regarding the civil fraud case she…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":131107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[79733,5229,79732,69,79734,79735,5022,24980,405,24978,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,46099,4352,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-131106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-454-2-million","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-civil-fraud-case","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-fraud-case-appeal","13":"tag-how-much-does-trump-owe-in-civil-fraud-case","14":"tag-investigation","15":"tag-letitia-james","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-attorney-general","18":"tag-new-york-city","19":"tag-newyork","20":"tag-newyorkcity","21":"tag-ny","22":"tag-nyc","23":"tag-subpoena","24":"tag-trump-administration","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-united-states-of-america","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114997521838777953","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}