Left: New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference regarding former US President Donald Trump and his family’s financial fraud case on September 21, 2022 in New York (photo by YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images). Right: Donald Trump speaks at a ‘Save America’ rally on October 22, 2022 in Robstown, Texas (photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images).
New York State Attorney General Letitia James asked a judge to sanction former President Donald Trump for making “demonstrably false denials” in his answer to her $250 million lawsuit against his business empire.
Calling Trump’s answers to her complaint “deficient in a host of ways,” the attorney general’s senior enforcement counsel Kevin Wallace writes: “Defendants falsely deny facts they have admitted in other proceedings, they deny knowledge sufficient to respond to factual allegations that are plainly within their knowledge, and they propound affirmative defenses that have been repeatedly rejected by this Court as frivolous and without merit.”
Pointing to one example, they claim that the former president falsely denied serving as “inactive president” of the Trump Organization during his time at the White House.
“But the allegation that Mr. Trump was the ‘inactive president of the Trump Organization,’ while in the White House, is taken directly from his own sworn testimony in Galicia v. Trump on October 18, 2021,” the attorney general’s letter states, referring to the since-settled lawsuit against Trump over his security guards’ alleged assault of protesters.
During a deposition in that case, Trump was asked about his position with his company during his tenure.
“I would say that I was an inactive president and now I’m active again,” Trump responded in a videotaped deposition, whose transcript is excerpted in court papers.
The attorney general’s office asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron to schedule a conference to consider their request for sanctions. They also want the judge to “deem factual allegations subject to improper denials as admitted” and dismiss Trump’s affirmative defenses.
Before the attorney general filed her lawsuit, Engoron granted sanctions against Trump for failing to comply with her subpoenas during the investigation.
Read the attorney general’s letter below:
This is a developing story.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
