For the second day in a row, a court has informed former President Donald Trump that yes, the New York Attorney General’s investigation of him will indeed continue.
On Friday morning, a federal judge shut down Trump’s attempt to halt a probe by New York AG Letitia James. U.S. District Judge Brenda K. Sannes dismissed the lawsuit in which the former president claimed he had been improperly singled out with a flawed political prosecution.
Just one day earlier, a state appellate court ruled that Trump and two of his adult kids—Don Jr. and Ivanka—can’t keep avoiding a deposition and must face questions about alleged bank fraud and tax avoidance.
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Trump himself hasn’t wanted to testify. He hasn’t wanted to turn over documents. And he hasn’t wanted to face scrutiny for routinely inflating property values that, according to investigators, allowed him to lie about his company’s finances in order to snag bank loans on more favorable terms and dodge taxes.
In her ruling, Sannes wrote that the AG’s subpoenas couldn’t be interpreted as unfair targeting. She said the facts don’t support the theory that Trump’s lawyers keep pushing: that the investigation is just a result of James, a Democrat, making good on political campaign promises to take down Trump, a Republican.
“While [Trump and the Trump Organization] point to [James’] many comments, which they argue illustrate [her] personal animus toward Mr. Trump and evince an intent to retaliate for or stifle [his] free speech, on this record the court finds that plaintiffs have not established that the subpoena enforcement proceeding was commenced for the purpose of retaliation,” she wrote.
Alina Habba, the attorney representing Trump and his company in the lawsuit, wrote to The Daily Beast that "there is no question" they will appeal the decision to a higher court. She reiterated the same argument that failed to convince Sannes: that the U.S. district judge should break with tradition—which separates the federal courts from meddling with state courts—and weigh in on this case. The tendency to abstain from crossing that line is referred to as a the Younger abstention doctrine.
"If Ms. James’s egregious conduct and harassing investigation does not meet the bad faith exception to the Younger abstention doctrine, then I cannot imagine a scenario that would,” she wrote.
