Bill Barr, a former attorney general, criticised New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil lawsuit against Donald Trump on Wednesday, accusing her of attempting to “bring the children” into the dispute.
Barr, who previously criticised Trump for keeping official records at his Florida club, slammed James’ lawsuit as “extreme overreach” and speculated that it could have been politically motivated.
According to Barr, who spoke to Fox News, “This appears to me to be gross overreach, which I think is going to backfire on them because I think it will make people sympathetic for Trump, that this is another example of people piling on due to Trump derangement syndrome, this strong desire to punish him.”
Barr remarked, “It’s difficult for me not to infer it’s a political attack job.”
Barr continued by accusing James of “targeting” Trump and pointing out, as Trump has in the past, that the AG ran on a platform of promising to look into the then-president.
And she is a lady who ran for office pledging she would pursue Trump, which I believe to be a grave misuse of authority to engage in head-hunting and personal targeting. Therefore, I believe she was aiming for Trump.
Barr also gave the impression that he did not like the basis of the lawsuit. The main contention of this legal litigation, which has been ongoing for three years, is that Donald Trump personally insured any loans taken out by the Trump Organization.
Barr also said that James filed her civil lawsuit, which sought $250 million in damages as well as a five-year ban on real estate transactions for Trump, his three adult children, and himself, because she lacked the necessary evidence.
“To me, it indicates that she lacks the proof to establish a case for illegal activity.” She is launching this civil lawsuit and lowering the standard as a result. It won’t, in my opinion, go any farther. The 222-page complaint is now over 200 pages lengthy and contains a lot of information on property assessment, he said.
But the reality is that valuing real estate for a sophisticated real estate firm like this is intrinsically quite subjective. Depending on the assumptions that are made. Values may change based on factors like whether the property is expected to be divided up or retained intact, and so forth. Thus, he remarked, “it’s not a precise science.”
Barr pleaded for pity on behalf of alleged defendants Don Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump.
When Trump was president, Don Jr., Eric, and businessman Allen Weisselberg worked together to operate the corporation. Senior adviser in the White House was Ivanka.
Ivanka is 40, Eric is 38, and Don Jr. is 44.
I’m not even convinced she has a strong case against Trump himself at this point. She drastically oversteps when she attempts to draw the kids into this, and that is what eventually convinces me that this is a political hit operation,’ Barr added.
According to the complaint, the three kids were “integral” to the enterprise and “intimately engaged” in running the Trump Organization.
It was noted that they were all read in on a master office schedule and that all were executive vice presidents who were “informed of the genuine financial condition of the firm.”
Barr’s remarks followed his early this month statement that the FBI stormed Mar-a-lago to look for federal files being housed there because the government was being “jerked about,” which shocked some viewers.
Republicans have referred to the search as “unprecedented,” which has prompted Barr to respond: “It’s also uncommon for a president to take all this secret material and place it in a country club.”
The House hearings on January 6 included testimony from Barr that attacked Trump’s assertions of electoral fraud. He claims to have called Trump’s statements “bulls***.”
Trump detractors erupted when AG Barr released a summary of the Mueller report that, in their opinion, minimised Robert Mueller’s listing of ten probable instances of judicial obstructive behaviour.
He also addressed the likelihood of vote fraud in public.
In the last weeks of his term, Trump sacked him, and a House committee is now looking into the Justice Department’s actions as part of its probe into Trump’s attempt to rig the election.
In his biography One Damn Thing After Another, Barr said that after the election, Trump “lost his control” and “was off the rails.”
After a three-year investigation, James on Wednesday accused Trump and his children of committing “multiple acts of fraud” and launched a lawsuit in an effort to permanently bar him from doing business in the state.
At a dramatic news conference on Wednesday, James revealed the lawsuit against the former president, citing a document that charges Trump and three of his adult children of inflating real estate values while applying for loans to grow his real estate company.
Making false claims about your financial situation is not part of the “Art of the Deal.” She referred to Trump’s well-known book when she stated, “It’s the art of the steal.”
She told reporters she was suing Trump for “violating the law as part of his attempts to earn riches for himself, his family, and his organisation” after reviewing “millions of papers” with a team of detectives.
James is suing Trump and his adult children for $250 million, claiming that he did it “to cheat the system and to cheat us all.” James also wants the court to “permanently” prohibit them from holding executive or director positions in any corporation or other similarly situated entity that is registered and/or licenced in New York.
Additionally, for a period of five years, she wants to prohibit Trump and his adult children from receiving loans in the state or participating in commercial real estate transactions, undermining the company that is the foundation of their livelihood.
Even if the lawsuit is dismissed, Trump would still have a financial stake in the property.
She listed some of his alleged transgressions, including “intentional and purposeful deception” for allegedly increasing the size of his penthouse suite in the Trump Tower and inflating its price.
The apartment, according to Trump, is 30,000 square feet. “In actuality, the apartment was less than 11,000 square feet in size.” The apartment was appraised at $327 million based on the exaggerated square footage.
The company’s assessment of Ivanka Trump’s penthouse residence at Trump Park Avenue is also described in an exhibit.
Although it claims she had the option to purchase Penthouse A for $8.5 million, the business consistently gave it a value of between $21 million and $25 million in its financial records.
She had the option to purchase Penthouse B for $14 million, but in 2014, its value had increased to $45 million.
The exhibit states that the Trump Organization utilised the $14,264,000 valuation for Penthouse B in the 2015–2020 statements despite receiving numerous warnings from an accountant that doing so was improper. Because to a lease adjustment in 2016, Ivanka Trump’s purchase price option was reduced even more, to $12,264,000. Despite this revision, the number was still incorrect for many assertions.