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Trump Attorney Habba Rips NY AG Letitia James: ‘Not That Bright’

OPINION: This article might comprise commentary which displays the writer’s opinion.

The attorney-spokeswoman for former President Donald Trump didn’t have a lot good to say about New York Attorney General Letitia James following a court docket session final week.

James is looking for $250 million in alleged damages from Trump and his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., in addition to a everlasting ban on them from doing any enterprise within the state of New York, as famous by The Hill. The decide overseeing the case, Arthur Engoron, dominated in September, earlier than the civil fraud trial started, that the previous president inflated the worth of his companies and property with a view to get extra favorable mortgage charges, a ruling that Trump has denied.

In an interview with Newsmax TV, lawyer Alina Habba rapped James, who has attended a number of the trial, as “not that bright.”

“She’s just not that bright. I’m sorry, I have to say it,” she mentioned, including that she doesn’t imagine James has a superb case. “I’ve seen their case; I’ve seen their lawyers. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Just because a bank who’s giving you a loan says it’s worth what the loan amount is, which is what happens when anybody takes a loan out, they’re never going to say the real value,” she continued, per The Hill. “They’re going to say what they want to say and not a penny more, or what the loan amount is and not a penny more.”

“She needs to educate herself, maybe go to some — I don’t even know how to express how ridiculous this is,” Habba mentioned. “It’s like being in a circus with a bunch of — I mean, what I want to say I can’t say on TV, but it’s crazy. You know, it’s just ridiculous. Anybody with a brain understands that this is just completely insane.”

Meanwhile, a former federal prosecutor ripped James for going after Trump in a case the place there was no financially injured celebration.

In an op-ed, Andrew McCarthy mentioned that James is “inventing losses no one ever suffered” to attempt to “get Trump.”

Trump has countered that not one of the banks and different firms he did enterprise with through the years ever misplaced cash or had been financially injured in any approach.

McCarthy basically helps Trump’s argument, writing in National Review: “The case against the former president lacks victims, so Tish James and Arthur Engoron are inventing some.”

The former prosecutor went on to notice that if Trump had actually defrauded banks out of greater than $168 million, they’d have little question sought authorized treatment from him, however they by no means did that as a result of, he argued, they by no means misplaced cash.

“That is not stopping elected progressive Democrats Letitia James and Arthur Engoron, the state attorney general and her cat’s paw in a judge’s robe, from concocting a mammoth fraud scheme masterminded by Trump in which we’re to believe the banks lost their shirts . . . but just forgot to complain about it,” he wrote.

He went on to notice that since Engoron dominated earlier than the trial even began Trump dedicated fraud, that left the previous president “no incentive to litigate as if he were in a normal legal proceeding.” As such, Trump has been left to spar with the decide and the prosecutors to exhibit that it’s little greater than a partisan continuing, McCarthy wrote.

Later, he famous:

The ongoing trial that has adopted Engoron’s ruling facilities on what the damages for Trump’s infraction must be. There is extra to it than that, as I elaborated here, however in the principle the trial is about figuring out whether or not Engoron, at James’s urging, will disgorge Trump and his real-estate empire of $250 million or extra in what she maintains are “ill-gotten gains.”

Obviously then, the Trump protection seeks to reduce the damages. Trump is making an attempt to do this by denying that there was any fraud in any respect, arguing that his property are price extra than what’s claimed within the SFCs. But Engoron retains chopping Trump and his attorneys off by insisting that he has already determined Trump (a) dedicated fraud, (b) overvalued his property, and (c) can’t be insulated by the disclaimer in his SFCs (advising counterparties to do their very own due diligence in evaluating asset values).

That has left the previous president questioning why actually have a trial if the result was predetermined, McCarthy mentioned.

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