New York attorney general asks court to reinstate President Trump’s massive civil fraud penalty

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s attorney general moved Thursday to have the state’s highest court reinstate President Donald Trump’s staggering civil fraud penalty, appealing a lower-court decision that slashed the potential half-billion-dollar fine to $0.

Attorney General Letitia James’ office filed a notice of appeal with the state’s Court of Appeals, seeking to reverse the mid-level Appellate Division’s ruling last month that the penalty violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on excessive fines.

James, a Democrat, had previously said she would appeal.

Trump declared “TOTAL VICTORY” after the Appellate Division wiped away his fine, but the five-judge panel left other punishments in place and narrowly endorsed a trial court’s finding that he committed fraud by padding his wealth on financial paperwork given to banks and insurers.

Trump, a Republican, filed his own appeal last week, asking the Court of Appeals to throw out those other punishments, which include a multiyear ban on him and his two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., from holding corporate leadership positions in New York.

Those measures have been on hold during the appellate process and the Appellate Division judges said in their Aug. 21 ruling that Trump can seek a court order to extend the pause pending further appeals.

Trump’s legal team accused James on Thursday of continuing a “political crusade” against Trump, saying in a statement that she “should focus on her own problems and stop wasting New York State taxpayers’ hard earned dollars on her failed Witch Hunt” against him and his business empire.

In a statement the day the Appellate Division ruled, James said: “It should not be lost to history: yet another court has ruled that the president violated the law, and that our case has merit.”

James’ appeal is the latest twist in a lawsuit she filed against Trump in 2022, which alleged that he inflated his net worth by billions of dollars on his financial statements and habitually misled banks and others about the value of prized assets, including golf courses, hotels, Trump Tower, and his Mar-a-Lago estate.

After a trial that saw a sometimes testy Trump take the witness stand, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled last year that James had proven he engaged in a yearslong conspiracy with executives at his company to deceive banks and insurers about his wealth and assets.

Engoron ordered Trump to pay $355 million — payback of what the judge deemed “ill-gotten gains” from his puffed-up financial statements. That amount soared to more than $515 million, including interest, by the time the Appellate Division ruled.

The five-judge Appellate Division panel was sharply divided on many issues in Trump’s appeal, but a majority said the monetary penalty was “excessive.”

“While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award,” two of the judges wrote.

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