Letitia James may be winning lawfare but losing the war 1/2
In an age of lawfare, New York Attorney General Letitia James has always embraced the total war option. Her very appeal has been her willingness to use any means against political opponents.
James first ran for her office by pledging to bag Donald Trump on something, anything. She did not specify the violation, only that she would deliver the ultimate trophy kill for Democratic voters. James follows the view of what Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz said about war, law is merely politics “by other means.”
Yet, the political success of James in weaponizing her office has been in stark contrast with her legal setbacks in courts.
James earlier sought to use her office to disband the National Rifle Association, the most powerful gun rights organization in the country, due to self-dealing and corruption of executives. James notably did not target liberal groups accused of similar violations.The ridiculous effort to disband the NRA collapsed in court.
It did not matter. James knew that such efforts were performative and that New York voters did not care if such attacks failed. She will continue to win the lawfare battles, even if she loses the war.
This week, two of James’s best-known campaigns were struggling in court.
James is best known for her fraud case against Trump, in which she secured a $464 million fine and a ban on Trump from the New York real estate business for three years. That penalty, which has now risen to $489 million with interest, was in a case where no one had lost a dime due to the alleged inaccurate property valuations in bank loans secured by the Trump organization. Not only where the banks fully paid on the loans and made considerable profits, but they wanted to make additional loans to the Trump organization.
In appellate arguments this week, James’s office faced openly skeptical justices who raised the very argumentsthat some of us have made for years about the ludicrous fine imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron.
Justice David Friedman noted thatthis law “is supposed to protect the market and the consumers — I don’t see it here.”
His colleague Justice Peter Moulton told her office “The immense penalty in this case is troubling” and added, “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by [Engoron] to the harm that was caused here where the parties left these transactions happy?”
The answer, of course, is the case was never about markets. It was about politics. The fact that the banks were “happy” is immaterial.Happiness in New York is a political, not legal calculus. The justices did not rule this week, but an opinion could be issued within a month.
In the same week, James faced a stinging defeat in another popular cause. James had targeted pro-life organizations for spreading supposed “disinformation” in not just opposing the use of mifepristone(the abortion pill used in the majority of abortions in the United States), but in advocating the use of reversal procedures if mothers change their minds before taking the second drug in the treatment regimen.
Critics charge that, while there are some studies showing successful reversal cases, the treatment remains unproven and unapproved. It remains an intense debate.
James, however, wanted to end the debate.She targeted pregnancy centers and was then sued by two pro-life ministries=, Summit Life Outreach Center and the Evergreen Association.
Judge John Sinatra Jr. blocked James‘s crackdown as a denial of free speech. Notably, these centers were not profiting by sharing this information or advocating such reversal treatment.
James merely declared thatpeople advocating such reversal treatments are engaged in “spreading dangerous misinformation by advertising…without any medical and scientific proof.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/4904634-attorney-general-letitia-james-lawfare/