Former Federal Prosecutor On The New York Attorney General’s Case Against Donald Trump And Three Of His Children

Former President, and The Apprentice star, Donald Trump has again found himself as the focal point of an investigation, this time by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Ms James is in the process of suing the former president and three of his children for fraud, with the aim of getting them barred from doing business in the state.

At a news conference, Ms James said she was referring the civil case to federal prosecutors to proceed with potential criminal investigations and subsequent charges.

“We’re filing a lawsuit against Donald Trump for violating the law as part of his efforts to generate profits for himself, his family, his company,” Ms James said.

“The complaint demonstrates that Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unjustly enrich himself and to cheat the system, thereby cheating all of us.”

The civil suit identifies that Donald Trump, alongside Erik Trump, Donald Trump Jr, and Ivanka Trump purposefully valued their assets falsely to achieve favorable tax benefits and loans.

Retorting to the allegations, Donald Trump said that he “never thought this case would be brought,” in a post on his Truth Social platform, while also alleging that Ms James is conducting a “get Trump” campaign.

He also stated that Ms James was a “failed” attorney general that is pushing people away from New York.

I spoke to Kenneth F. McCallion about the case. A former federal prosecutor and well-known attorney, McCallion began his career as a prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice’s renowned Brooklyn Organized Crime Strike Force, which handled the Abscam political corruption cases and the Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport, which served as the basis for the film Goodfellas.

Since entering private practice, McCallion has worked on the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Case, the Bhopal India Gas Disaster Cases, the Holocaust Claims cases, the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001, the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant case, and a host of other lesser known cases fought on behalf of ordinary people who have suffered damages.

“The case poses an existential threat to the Trump Organization,” said McCallion, “with Ms James looking for hefty penalties and a ban on the Trump Organization from making commercial real estate purchases in New York for five years.”

He continued, “What will be more interesting is to see what happens on a criminal front. The New York AG is asking The Southern District of New York and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to look into possible federal prosecution. That’s the case that will be even more devastating to the Trump Empire, especially since Ms. James and her team have compiled a mountain of evidence.”

I asked McCallion about the current legal climate in the United States and the possible sense some people will have that certain individuals are above the law, and do not get proper justice because of their finances.

He responded: “Although we would like to think that all Americans have equal access to justice and that the scales of justice are evenly balanced for all participants in our state and federal litigation systems, this noble goal is far from a reality.”

“Large corporations and wealthy individuals have the financial resources to hire top-notch lawyers and large law firms to represent them in civil litigation and in court. Meanwhile, small business corporations and ordinary Americans lack the financial resources to wage prolonged court battles against larger, well-healed adversaries. As a result, access to civil justice is effectively denied to most Americans, which is one reason why the rich are getting richer, with the upper 1% counting their net worth in billions, not just in millions, and the poor and middle class largely excluded from the American dream of prior generations.”

“It used to be, even during my lifetime, that members of the working class could reasonably expect to move up the socio-economic ladder, with hard work and a solid education. However, America’s dirty little secret is that the doors of opportunity are much harder to pry open, and the ladder of upward mobility has largely been pulled up and is no longer really within their grasp, despite the continuing myth that America is the land of opportunity.”

“The country is, unfortunately, starting to resemble Russia and other autocratic states, which preserve the mere trappings of democracy but, in reality, are dominated by economic and political oligarchs who can distract their have-not fellow citizens from this reality by cynically appealing to prejudices, false narratives and misconceptions.”

“One of the only counterweights available to prevent this almost inexorable drift towards totalitarianism and a rigid caste economic system are the state attorneys general plus the relatively small band of plaintiff’s lawyers who are able to take on the entrenched interests through the representation of ordinary citizens and small corporations though contingency fee arrangements, whereby the lawyers only receive a percentage of any settlement or judgment against the defendants if the case is successful. In almost every case, this is a risky venture for the plaintiff’s lawyers who take on these cases, so they must carefully evaluate each case before taking them on, and they must have the experience, legal skills, and financial staying power necessary to see these cases to a successful conclusion.”

“The only other bulwark against our country’s drift towards totalitarianism is the ability of the American voters to come to their senses, shake off their stupor, and elect pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian representatives to Congress, their state legislatures and governorships, and who are not the pawns of the special corporate interests and conservative think tanks that are tirelessly working to undermine the will of the people with voter restrictions and campaign finance manipulations that are designed to thwart the will of the majority and to keep the entrenched special interests and oligarchs in power in perpetuity.”

It is not currently known if federal prosecutors – or the IRS – will open criminal investigations but Ms James did specify that she is asking a New York court to permanently bar former president Donald Trump and his three aforementioned children from conducting business in the state.

Ms James also stated that during her three-year investigation Donald Trump and the accused had submitted more than 200 false valuations on annual financial statements. This allowed the Trump organization to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in loans. The official investigation by Ms James’ office began after former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen specifically mentioned business misconduct in his formal address to Congress in 2019.

With some words of wisdom to conclude in light of the investigation on Trump and his children, McCallion commented, “Life is not a race to see who has the most money or expensive toys at the end. It is about character and a clear moral compass. Trump apparently never learned this lesson and it may soon prove to be his undoing.”