Letitia James: New legal step in Trump case ‘relevant’ to election: lawyer

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ new legal action in former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud case is “relevant” to the November election, attorney Glenn Kirschner said Friday.

In February, New York Judge Arthur Engoron fined Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, $464 million after finding him guilty of corporate fraud. Trump maintains his innocence, alleging the case was politically motivated and his legal team has appealed Engoron’s ruling.

James’ office asked the New York appeals court on Wednesday to uphold Engoron’s ruling, writing in a filing that the judge’s ruling “is supported by overwhelming evidence that defendants employed a variety of misleading strategies in each affidavit to materially misrepresent the value of Trump’s assets.”

In a video posted to YouTube on Friday ahead of his show Justice is importantKirschner, a former U.S. attorney and frequent Trump critic who has appeared on MSNBC as a legal analyst, spoke about James’ latest filing, saying, “It’s quite relevant to the presidential race. It directly bears on Donald Trump’s fitness to ever hold office again. We have to add this legal development to all the other legal developments and circumstances that Donald Trump is facing.”

Kirschner then addressed Trump’s other legal troubles, including the 34 felony counts he was convicted of by a New York grand jury in late May, related to a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, and his ongoing case for federal election interference in Washington, D.C., and state election interference in Georgia. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the pending charges against him and maintains his innocence in the hush-money case, which he is currently trying to overturn. He claims all of the cases against him are politically motivated.

“Donald Trump is effectively disqualified from holding any office, let alone the highest office in the land: President of the United States,” Kirschner added.

Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, said Newsweek via email on Saturday morning: “Loser Glenn Kirschner is an idiot and a notorious peddler of wild conspiracy theories and dubious legal analysis, and is generally shunned by the legal community.”

Newsweek reached out to Kirschner via text message Saturday morning and to James’ office via email for comment.

The appeals court will hear arguments on Trump’s civil fraud appeal on Sept. 26, about six weeks before Election Day. Some states would have already begun early voting by then. A decision in the case could come before the end of the presidential race, as the appeals court typically rules about a month after arguments, NBC News reported.

In the civil fraud case against Trump, Engoron found the former president, his adult sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and The Trump Organization, Trump’s real estate company, liable for a scheme that unlawfully inflated the value of the former president’s wealth and assets to obtain more favorable business deals.

Trump was ordered to pay nearly half a billion dollars and a three-year ban from doing business in New York. Donald Jr. and Eric were ordered to pay more than $4 million each and a two-year ban from doing business in New York.