The state's chief legal officer, who is investigating the president and his company, has the ability to render a "judgment of corporate death" for business fraud. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/do...one-most-powerful-nation-should-worry-n985086 New York State Attorney General Letitia James takes her oath of office on Ellis Island on Jan. 1, 2019.Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images file April 1, 2019, 4:07 AM EDT By Allan Smith Shortly after her election in November, New York Attorney General Letitia James vowed to "use every area of the law" to probe President Donald Trump, his family and associates, and his business. As the chief legal officer in a state with that provides her with sweeping investigatory and prosecutorial powers, she can keep that promise. With special counsel Robert Mueller's probe now complete, others' investigations, including the New York attorney general's, are continuing. James recently subpoenaed Trump's banks, seeking information about the Trump Organization and the president's finances. Though Trump has dismissed these efforts as "presidential harassment" and tweeted that James, a Democrat, "openly campaigned on a GET TRUMP agenda," several former New York attorneys general and legal experts say the president could have plenty to fear. "There's broad power — there's no question," Oliver Koppell, a Democrat who served as New York attorney general in 1994, told NBC News of the substantial authority and tools the office has to investigate and prosecute businesses for fraud. The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment. New York law allows the attorney general to seek restitution and damages — and, in extreme cases, dissolution — if a business is found to have engaged in persistent fraud. There's also the Martin Act, a 1921 statute designed to protect investors. Past attorneys general have used the Martin Act, considered to be the U.S.'s toughest such state statute in this realm, to expand their powers in the financial crimes sector. The law empowers the attorney general to subpoena witnesses and documents for information pertaining to possible fraud. "The Martin Act gives really broad powers," said Dennis Vacco, a Republican who served as New York attorney general from 1995 to 1998. (Vacco declined to comment on whether Trump or associates have sought his legal counsel regarding this investigation.) Vacco said the Martin Act is one of few in the nation that provides the attorney general with criminal investigative authority without having to first receive a referral from the governor or a state agency and he noted that a criminal prosecution often will start off as a civil investigation, which is what the Trump Organization is currently facing. The statute "really does apply to almost any financial transaction in New York state," he said. Koppell said that it was former Democratic New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who served from 1999 to 2006, who wrote the modern playbook that James could follow. Spitzer "really kind of expanded the scope of attorney general work in the area of financial fraud," Koppell said. Spitzer, who later was elected governor only to resign amid a prostitution scandal in 2008, aggressively pursued white-collar crimes like securities fraud and used statutes such as the Martin Act to pursue prosecutions that had been typically left for federal authorities. Spitzer's investigation of American International Group and its then-CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, for example, may have parallels to James' latest lines of inquiry into Trump's businesses. The then-attorney general alleged that the insurance giant's top executives engaged in fraudulent business practices. Those executives settled with the state in 2017, agreeing to forfeit about $10 million in performance bonuses, a fraction of what New York sought. Through a spokesperson, Spitzer declined to comment to NBC News. COULD JAMES DISSOLVE THE TRUMP ORG? It's rare for the attorney general to seek the dissolution of a business, but it has happened. In 1994, the state closed down an education company that repeatedly failed to comply with student loan regulations. In "People by Abrams v. Oliver School," a New York appellate court affirmed the dissolution and said the power was typically used "as a remedy for persistent consumer fraud." The power has been described by the state Supreme Court as a "judgment of corporate death," with the offending company's transgressions needing to be so serious "as to harm or menace the public welfare" in order for it to be an appropriate remedy. The public first became aware of James' new inquiry into Trump and his business after she recently subpoenaed Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank for records regarding some of Trump's business dealings and his failed 2014 effort to buy the NFL's Buffalo Bills. Like her office's ongoing probe into the Trump Foundation, which led to the dissolution of the president's charity, the latest inquiry into Trump's business dealings is a civil investigation.
The walls are closing in. This is it... They’ve got him now. Enjoy your orange jump suit.. I’m sure LETITIA doesn’t have a partisan bone in her body.
Yeah, that'll work. Lets peruse through decades old business deals. Dems might want to consider finding a somewhat rational candidate now that Uncle Joe has all but been kicked to the curb. It's now a legit question to ask if democrats actually want to win the next election, or just chase conspiracy theories and bridge to nowhere investigations.
The Witch Hunt continues from a Democrat who openly ran on the platform of "Get Trump". Letitia James should be more worried about the federal DOJ visiting her office.
I hope every bone in her body is partisan. And I hope those partisan bones fuel her enthusiasm to relentlessly follow the law and get it exactly right as she pursues Trump and his companies for any legal wrongdoing they have perpetrated. Oh, we'll have such fun!
Yeh, maybe she will be able to accomplish what the last witch hunter could not. We heard every day for years about who was being flipped by Mueller, and in the end, Mueller was the one who flipped on you clowns. Yeh, there is plenty of dirt coming in the report. But we know the punchlines on obstruction and collusion cases in regard to prosecution. Keep trying. You got nothing else going on in MooseDump so self-stimulating to pictures of the New York Attorney General is going to be the high point of your day.