Donald Trump has reportedly launched a lawsuit against New York state Attorney General Letitia James in an attempt to halt a slow-burning probe into his real estate dealings.
The former president filed his suit on Monday in federal court, according to the New York Times. In it he claims that Ms James’s investigation “is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent”.
The civil investigation is focused on allegations that Mr Trump and his associates may have deliberately over- and under-valued his real estate assets to reduce his tax burden and obtain favourable loan terms from lenders. Ms James, who has declined to run for governor in order to focus on her current job, said earlier this month that she is seeking Mr Trump’s personal testimony. A subpoena has been issued for his co-operation.
The probe into Mr Trump’s real estate empire is one of several slow-moving legal investigations that threaten to complicate the sometime president’s path in a future campaign for the White House, which he is widely thought to be considering.
Among the other cases is a defamation suit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who claims Mr Trump raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s. On the financial front, the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO, Allen Weisselberg, were indicted this summer for operating what prosecutors claim was “a scheme to defraud federal New York State, and New York City tax authorities” over the course of at least 15 years.
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Mr Trump has also spent years fighting a Congressional subpoena for his tax returns, a battle that he looks set to lose. A federal judge last week ruled that he was “wrong on the law” in his arguments that the case counted as undue political persecution.