Donald Trump spent a great deal of his 2016 campaign trail railing against the “Deep State”: A loosely-defined segment of the government-industrial-legal establishment that pulls the strings America’s elite in order to get what they want, ever-enriching themselves via their network of influence and wealth.
Trump vowed to “drain the swamp” of such people, and his supporters found the message invigorating. Soon, Trump was in the Oval Office working to shatter the status quo, insulated there from the “Deep State” he was so concerned with.
But now that Trump is out of office, there appears to be no end to the ways that he has found himself attacked, including a new lawsuit from New York’s Attorney General.
The New York Attorney General’s office has filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, several of his family members, as well associates and businesses, alleging “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation” regarding financial statements.
Attorney General Letitia James said at a news conference Wednesday morning after the complaint was filed in New York Supreme Court that Trump “inflated his net worth by billions of dollars,” and that his children Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric helped him.
James laid out the allegations plainly.
“Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization repeatedly and persistently manipulated the value of assets to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company,” James said, “to pay lower taxes, to satisfy continuing loan agreements and to induce insurance companies to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums.”
James said that over the course of her office’s investigation, they interviewed 65 witnesses and reviewed millions of documents. She said the evidence showed that Trump submitted “more than 200 false and misleading asset valuations.”
The Attorney General is referring the case to the Internal Revenue Service as well, albeit criminally, which brings ever more of the federal government into the mix.
If you believed that you could deny the existence of the Deep State before, you may now be having second thoughts.
