On the morning closing arguments were set to begin at Donald Trump’s drama-filled New York fraud trial, a small crowd of protestors briefly blocked traffic to denounce the former president. “No dictators in the USA,” the group chanted.
When a black SUV rolled up to the courthouse, the protestors changed course. “Thank you, Tish! Thank you, Tish!” they cheered as Letitia James ascended the courthouse steps.
The end of Trump’s fraud trial marked the closing of the New York attorney general’s highest-profile case to date. Though a team of lawyers from her office led the case, James has been the public face of the trial since its start. Sitting behind Trump in court and sometimes casting meme-worthy, incredulous looks at Trump and his team, she has inevitably become a target of his vitriol inside and outside the courtroom.
“I DID NOTHING WRONG, MY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS ARE GREAT, & VERY CONSERVATIVE, THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT THE HIGHLY POLITICAL & TOTALLY CORRUPT NEW YORK STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL SAYS,” Trump wrote, in all caps, on Truth Social in January. “THE CORRUPT AG WANTS $370M AS BUSINESSES FLEE NEW YORK. THEY SHOULD PAY ME.”
James kept her comments on the trial brief, posting summaries of the trial’s happening each week on social media and sometimes offering comments outside the courthouse. On the last day of the trial, long after Trump left the courthouse having delivered a bizarre closing statement, James told reporters: “The personal attacks don’t really bother me.
On Friday James was given a stunning victory. The judge overseeing the case, Arthur Engoron, handed her almost everything she had asked for. Trump was fined over $350m and he and his eldest sons were banned from doing business in New York for years.
“Today, justice has been served. This is a tremendous victory for this state, this nation, and for everyone who believes that we all must play by the same rules – even former presidents,” James said in a statement. “For years, Donald Trump engaged in massive fraud to falsely inflate his net worth and unjustly enrich himself, his family, and his organization.
“Now, Donald Trump is finally facing accountability for his lying, cheating, and staggering fraud. Because no matter how big, rich, or powerful you think you are, no one is above the law.”
It is an argument that James campaigned on when she ran for the attorney general seat in 2018. At the time, the position was embroiled in scandal following abuse accusations against the former attorney general Eric Schneiderman.
Raised in Brooklyn with her seven siblings, James attended public schools before getting her law degree at Howard University in Washington DC. She rose through the ranks as a public defender before entering New York politics as a councilmember and then as public advocate, the first Black woman to hold the watchdog role and one where she filed a record number of suits on behalf of people with disabilities, seniors and tenants.
When she won the attorney general’s office, another first for a Black woman, James vowed to “take that power back” from corporations and corrupt politicians.
“The law is the great equalizer and the biggest pillar of our democracy,” she said in her inaugural speech in 2019. “I will shine a light into the murkiest of swamps and act as a steward of justice.”
Even as Trump’s fraud trial comes to an end, James is still pursuing other high-profile cases, including a civil case against top officials of the National Rifle Association (NRA). James has accused them of violating non-profit law by using NRA funds for their personal benefit.
The case could ultimately see the dissolution of the once-powerful gun lobbying group. Wayne LaPierre, the longtime NRA president at the center of the case, resigned in early January before the trial began, in what James said was an “important…
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