New York AG will seek sanctions on Trump, lawyers over ‘false’ court filings in fraud suit

Trump and the other defendants last week responded to the lawsuit with a court filing that contained so-called verified answers to the allegations.

On Tuesday, a lawyer for James told Engoron that “each of the Verified Answers is deficient in a host of ways.”

“Defendants falsely deny facts they have admitted in other proceedings,” wrote Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel of the AG’s Office’s Division of Economic Justice.

“They deny knowledge sufficient to respond to factual allegations that are plainly within their knowledge,” Wallace wrote.

“And they propound affirmative defenses that have been repeatedly rejected by this Court as frivolous and without merit,” he added.

Wallace said the attorney general’s office plans to file a motion asking Engoron to take several steps that would undercut Trump’s defense to the suit. One would be the judge assuming that Trump had effectively admitted the allegations that he and his co-defendants had improperly denied.

James also will ask that Engoron “sanction defendants and their counsel,” according to Wallace’s letter.

The letter said that “a cursory review” of the verified answers shows “that a number of the denials are demonstrably false and actually contradict sworn statements by the Defendants in other proceedings.”

Wallace pointed to the Trump defendants’ denial in James’ lawsuit that Trump remained the inactive president of the Trump Organization while serving in the White House.

“But the allegation that Mr. Trump was the ‘inactive president of the Trump Organization,’ while in the White House, is taken directly from his own sworn testimony in Galicia v. Trump on October 18, 2021,” Wallace wrote. “In fact, [James’] complaint uses Mr. Trump’s own phrasing.”

Eric Trump in the verified answers denied that Seven Springs LLC, which is controlled by the Trump company, bought a property in Westchester County, New York, in 1995 for $7.5 million after the company admitted it did in a prior court proceeding, Wallace said.

The lawyer concluded by saying Engoron “has already admonished Defendants and their counsel for their continued invocation of meritless legal claims but exercised its discretion in not imposing such sanctions, ‘having made its point.'”

But Wallace added, “It does not appear that this point was taken, however, and [Office of the Attorney General] would ask the Court to renew the issue.”

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/new-york-attorney-general-will-seek-sanctions-on-trump.html