Why One of Trump’s Biggest Legal Threats Is New York’s Attorney General
State prosecutors are especially tough on financial misconduct
Then there’s the fact that the offenses where Trump has the greatest potential liability in New York — for example, tax or other kinds of corporate fraud — are ones the New York attorney general’s office is particularly adept at handling. Over the past 15 years, New York has steadily stepped up its prosecutions of financial crimes. “Fraud cases are the linchpin of what most attorneys general do, and the laws are particularly strong in New York,” said Paul Nolette, a political science professor at Marquette University who studies state attorneys general.
Trump knows this firsthand, because of a previous tangle with former attorney general Eric Schneiderman. The state sued Trump University for defrauding customers in a case that was settled for $25 million. And because Trump ran for office, opening his businesses to a whole new level of national scrutiny, the Trump Foundation lawsuit may have only been the beginning. Before he resigned last year, Schneiderman was reportedly cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller on matters related to Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and state tax officials said they’re looking into potential massive tax fraud by the Trump family after reporting from The New York Times last fall. Meanwhile, New York’s new attorney general, Letitia James campaigned on a promise to hold the president accountable across a wide range of issues, including his businesses and finances.
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Finally, legal experts told me that if New York officials have sufficient evidence against Trump and the appetite for a protracted legal battle, they may have the best chance at testing a high-stakes constitutional unknown: Is it possible to issue a criminal indictment against a sitting president?
Unlike their federal counterparts, state prosecutors are not bound by a Department of Justice policy that says that a sitting president is immune from indictment (a former president is fair game). “I think it would be hard for a judge to tell New York that it can’t pursue charges for criminal violations of its own state law by Donald Trump that occurred before he was president,” said Andy Wright, former associate counsel to President Obama.
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