Letitia James, the attorney general for the state of New York has announced the filing of a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump and his family and associates for fraud.

In a statement, the attorney general said the suit was filed “against Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, senior management and involved entities for engaging in years of financial fraud to obtain a host of economic benefits.

“The lawsuit alleges that Donald Trump, with the help of his children Donald Trump Jr, Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump, and senior executives of the Trump Organization, falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company, to satisfy continuing loan covenants, induce insurers to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and lower premiums, and to gain tax benefits, among other things.”
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James also said investigators believed “the conduct alleged in this action also violates federal criminal law, including issuing false statements to financial institutions and bank fraud”.

She said: “We are referring those criminal violations that we’ve uncovered to the United States attorney for the southern district of New York and the Internal Revenue Service.”

This lawsuit was not unexpected since James has been investigating this case for some time and had already obtained a guilty plea from Trump chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.

In addition to all the legal challenges Trump is facing over his actions while president and before, he now faces a rape allegation dating from over two decades ago. Although this alleged rape happened so long ago, a New York state law that goes into effect on November 24 “gives adult accusers a one-year window to bring civil claims over alleged sexual misconduct regardless of how long ago it occurred”.

E. Jean Carroll is requesting that this rape charge be added to the defamation case that she already has filed against Trump.

E Jean Carroll, the writer who accused Donald Trump of raping her more than two decades ago, plans to file a new lawsuit against the former US president.

In a letter made public on Tuesday, a lawyer for former Elle magazine columnist said she planned to sue Trump for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress under New York state’s Adult Survivors Act.
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Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said her client planned to sue Trump on 24 November, when the state law takes effect, and that the claims and Carroll’s existing defamation case against Trump could be tried together in February 2023.
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Carroll has accused Trump of raping her in the dressing room of the upscale Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman. She sued him in 2019 while he was serving his presidency, saying he slandered her by denying her allegation that he raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s. Trump said she was “totally lying” and was “not my type”, among other remarks.

There is an added wrinkle.

Trump has denied raping Carroll and accused her of concocting the rape claim to sell her book.
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Carroll’s lawyer Kaplan has said she now wants Trump to testify under oath at a deposition, to better understand his “theory of the case”, despite her saying in February that a deposition wouldn’t be needed.

Carroll’s lawyers have said they want to obtain a DNA sample from Trump to compare against a dress Carroll claimed to have worn during the alleged rape.

Whether the defamation case can proceed at all is being adjudicated by an appeals court.

Trump will go ballistic if required to provide a DNA sample.

The lawsuit can’t go to trial until the appeals court clarifies whether the defendant is Trump or the U.S. government.

In August 2020, Trump reportedly instructed then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr to cause the United States to intervene and substitute itself as the defendant, the judge said. That challenge, continued by President Joe Biden’s Justice Department, still awaits an appeals ruling.

You need a spreadsheet to keep track of all Trump’s legal problems.