New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to expedite her $250 million lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and his organization, according to a court document.
James announced her intention to start a trial for the lawsuit before 2024, claiming the fraud is part of an “ongoing scheme” and should therefore be handled quickly. James additionally asked that Justice Arthur Engoron overlook the case, as he presided over disputes between James’s and Trump’s legal teams previously.
TOP FIVE TAKEAWAYS: HERE’S WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT LETITIA JAMES’S FRAUD LAWSUIT AGAINST TRUMP
“[The Office of the Attorney General] intends to seek an expedited preliminary conference to set a trial date before the end of 2023,” James said in a letter to New York’s chief administrative judge on Thursday, according to ABC News. “Allowing for an expedited trial schedule on an enforcement proceeding after extensive litigation over subpoena enforcement is precisely the circumstance that warrants keeping this case before Justice Engoron in the interests of judicial economy.”
Trump petitioned for a new judge in the case after Engoron held him in contempt for not complying with a subpoena in the investigation. However, James’s office claimed that Engoron was already familiar with the case and that assigning a new judge would require a new person to examine thousands of documents related to the case.
James announced the lawsuit last week, alleging that Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, and two other corporate executives participated in a yearslong scheme that falsely inflated the organization’s net worth by billions of dollars.
“Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization repeatedly and persistently manipulated the value of assets to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than [what] would otherwise have been available to the company,” James explained during a press event.
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The lawsuit also seeks to revoke the organization’s business certificate, which would make it nearly impossible to do business in the state.
All defendants have denied any wrongdoing.
