The New York state attorney general filed a sweeping lawsuit Wednesday against former President Donald Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, alleging they were involved in an expansive fraud lasting over a decade that the former President used to enrich himself.We can expect the legal process to take years and the Trumps to argue that the incorrect valuations, which allowed them to pay lower interest rates on loans, were perfectly innocent and inadvertent, an argument a jury (or at least enough Fox-watching jurors) might buy. But in the long term this could be very bad news for the Trump family.
... According to the lawsuit, the Trump Organization deceived lenders, insurers and tax authorities by inflating the value of his properties using misleading appraisals.
“This conduct cannot be brushed aside and dismissed as some sort of good-faith mistake,” James said at a news conference in New York.
“The statements of financial condition were greatly exaggerated, grossly inflated, objectively false, and therefore fraudulent and illegal,” she added.
In the short term, however, it's excellent news for Trump the potential Republican presidential candidate. It makes him the victim of the evil libs again, just as we're all forgetting about the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, the last event that gave a boost to Trump's poll numbers among Republicans.
Which leads to me wonder whether Ron DeSantis knew this was coming and didn't want Trump to have two unanswered back-to-back opportunities to whine about a "witch hunt." DeSantis is far away from Albany, but he has many friends at Fox News, and Fox has sources in Albany. So maybe he got word that the lawsuit was coming this month and redoubled his efforts to put cruelty points on the board before the suit could be announced. Or maybe not, but is it unreasonable to speculate?
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