Former President Donald Trump blasted a civil fraud lawsuit against him and his children unveiled by New York’s attorney general during an interview on Wednesday.
The former president called the lawsuit “a continuation of a witch hunt that began when I came down the escalator at Trump tower,” a reference to his 2015 speech announcing his intention to run for president, during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity. Trump also accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of campaigning on going after him and said that James is “trying to defend banks that got paid off.”
“Well, she campaigned on it four years ago. It was a vicious campaign, and she just talked about Trump and ‘we’re going to indict him, we’re going to get him.’ She knew nothing about me. I never heard of her,” Trump said of James.
The former president added that he was “under the impression she wanted to settle” the case and didn’t believe James was going to file a lawsuit after he sat for a deposition related to the case last month.
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James’s lawsuit alleges that the Trump Organization manipulated asset valuations to “deceive banks and the people of the great state of New York.” She is seeking for Trump and his company to pay a minimum of $250 million for allegedly engaging in fraudulent business practices.
“They’ve demeaned me for years with this stuff,” Trump said of the New York Attorney General’s Office’s investigation, adding, “and now they find out I have very little debt, very, very little, a lot of cash, we have a great company, and we have among the best assets anywhere in the world. … There’s something wrong with them. I really believe they hate our country.”
Trump claimed during the interview, which took place at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, that all parties that his company obtained loans from were paid back and that his company includes a lengthy disclaimer with all financial disclosures it provides to banks.
“It goes on for like a page and a half. It’s a big disclaimer. It’s a very powerful disclaimer,” Trump said.
“What we do is, here’s a financial statement but be careful, it may not be accurate, it may be way off,” he said, describing the disclaimer.
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James’s lawsuit also calls for Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump to be barred from serving as “an officer or director in any corporation” or similar entity in New York and for the former president and his company to be barred from “entering into any New York State commercial real estate acquisition or from applying for loans” in New York for the next five years.
James has been conducting an investigation into the Trump Organization since 2019, when former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified before Congress that the Trump Organization manipulated asset valuations for tax and business benefit.
