Letitia James’s Lawsuit Against Trump Says He Obtained $250 Million Fraudulently

Letitia James, the New York Attorney General (D), has filed a lawsuit to sue former President Donald Trump, his children and executives of Trump Organization. The suit alleges that they engaged in fraudulent business practices in order to obtain business loans and avoid taxes.

The complaint filed by James on Wednesday “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,” James said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit.

James explained that Trump “repeatedly and persistently manipulated the value of assets” to get better loan terms and to pay lower tax rates, citing 65 witness testimoniesAnd millions of documents she and her staff looked through. Trump’s adult children — Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — were also implicated in the deceptive practices, along with current and former executives from his businesses.

The lawsuit is a civil one, meaning that the state will not seek out criminal charges relating to Trump’s alleged actions. During the press conference, James explained that Trump’s office believes he may have committed federal crimes. is forwarding evidence they have retrieved to the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service.

The suit seeks to have Trump and his family banned from being executives in any New York company. It also seeks to stop the Trump Organization’s acquisition of property in New York over the next five-years.

The state also seeks a $250 million judgment on Trump and his company’s gains as a result lying about their assets’ valuations.

“The number of grossly inflated asset values is staggering, affecting most if not all of the real estate holdings in any given year,” the lawsuit alleges, adding:

In total, Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization derived more 200 misleading and false valuations of assets from the 11 Statements covering 2011-2021.

Trump misrepresented the size his apartment in New York City according to the lawsuit by more than three times its actual dimensions. But misleading statements about his properties’ values weren’t limited to just New York — Trump also lied about the valuations of his Mar-a-Lago estate, falsely claiming that the property could be developed for residential use in order to obtain better loan rates.

Mar-a-Lago “should have been valued at about $75 million, but it was valued at $739 million,” the lawsuit states.

James shared her reasons for filing the lawsuit via a recent tweet.

“There aren’t two sets of laws for people in this nation: former presidents must be held to the same standards as everyday Americans,” she said.