(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump’s federal lawsuit challenging New York’s authority to investigate his sprawling real estate business was dismissed, the latest setback in the former president’s effort to halt the three-year-old probe.
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Trump and his company failed to provide evidence that New York Attorney General Letitia James opened the investigation as a result of political bias against him, US District Judge Brenda Sannes ruled Friday.
Trump had pointed to numerous public statements by James, a Democrat, to suggest the probe was politically motivated, including a claim in a 2018 speech that Trump “can’t go a day without threatening our fundamental rights.” Sannes said that wasn’t enough.
“The fact that defendant’s public statements reflect personal and/or political animus toward plaintiffs is not, in and of itself, sufficient” to show that the investigation itself was biased, Sannes, a Barack Obama appointee, said in the ruling.
Read More: New York A.G. James Seeks Dismissal of Trump Suit Over Probe
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the ruling.
The suit, filed in December, was a key part of an aggressive new legal strategy implemented by Trump in the past year, including a suit accusing Hillary Clinton of conspiring against him, and a $100 million complaint against his estranged niece Mary Trump and the New York Times over an award-winning story on his finances.
The decision Friday is a victory for James, who argued Trump filed the suit as a desperate delay tactic after a state court judge repeatedly ruled that the investigation was proper. On Thursday, her subpoenas for sworn testimony from Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump were upheld by an appeals court.
James, who is probing potentially fraudulent asset valuations at the Manhattan-based Trump Organization, started the probe only after Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen testified to Congress in 2019 that the company had issued fraudulent financial statements.
The case is Trump v. James, 21-cv-01352, US District Court, Northern District of New York (Albany).
(Updates with details and context starting in second paragraph.)
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