Letitia James attacks Trump and the NRA

San Francisco CA

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Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday against the New York State attorney general in an attempt to stop a civil investigation into his business practices, The New York Times reported. Trump's suit, filed in Albany, New York, also aims to prevent state Attorney General from participating in a separate criminal investigation, the Times reported. "Her mission is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent," the suit said, the Times reported. Trump on Wednesday said James was continuing her "witch hunt" against him and fellow Republicans because her campaign for governor was "a complete failure." On the day she dropped out of the New York gubernatorial race, James signaled that she would seek to question Trump under oath early next month. "Letitia James wants to politically weaponize her position as Attorney General instead of exemplifying impartiality and protecting the interests of all New Yorkers," Trump said in a statement released by his Save America joint fundraising committee. "While she pretends that she suspended her short-lived campaign for New York Governor to go after me, she conveniently fails to mention that she couldn’t garner any support and her poll numbers were abysmal — she had no chance of even coming close to winning." During her campaign, James often invoked Trump on Twitter and in fundraising appeals, writing that, "New Yorkers need a fighter who will take on Donald Trump & stand up for our rights. I’ll be that fighter. Join my campaign," the Times said. "I need your help in this fight against Donald Trump," another message read, the Times reported. Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement that the lawsuit was an effort to stop James' "bitter crusade to punish her political opponent in its tracks." The attorney general of New York took action in 2020 to dissolve the National Rifle Association following an 18-month investigation that found evidence the powerful gun rights group is "fraught with fraud and abuse." Attorney General Letitia James claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday that she found financial misconduct in the millions of dollars and that it contributed to a loss of more than $64 million over a three-year period. The suit alleges that top NRA executives misused charitable funds for personal gain, awarded contracts to friends and family members, and provided contracts to former employees to ensure loyalty. Seeking to dissolve the NRA is the most aggressive sanction James could have sought against the not-for-profit organization, which James has jurisdiction over because it is registered in New York. James has a wide range of authorities relating to nonprofits in the state, including the authority to force organizations to cease operations or dissolve. The NRA is all but certain to contest it. The NRA said in a statement that the legal action was political, calling it a "baseless premeditated attack on our organization and the Second Amendment freedoms it fights to defend... we not only will not shrink from this fight – we will confront it and prevail."