Donald Trump’s Lawyers Argue There Is No Such Thing as ‘The Trump Org.’ The Court was not pleased.

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BREAKING: The Trump Organization doesn’t exist! No one for the New York Attorney General to melt, no one to fine. Pack it in kids, we can all go home.

Or maybe not.

Last week, the Trumpland defendants’ various responses to the NYAG’s $250 million civil complaint began several versions of this denial:

To the extent a response is required, Defendant specifically rejects the definitions of “Trump Organization” and “Defendant.” While the shorthand “Trump Organization” is used by Defendants for branding and business purposes, no such entity exists for legal purposes. The definitions of “Trump Organization” and “Defendant,” as used by the Attorney General, lump the Defendants together improperly, without regard to the inherent or discrete legal identity of each Defendant, and fail to identify to whom the Defendant or Defendants are named the conduct alleged is attributed. Said pleading is not “sufficiently specific to give the court and the parties notice of the transactions [or] circumstances … intended to prove”, and thus fails to satisfy the basic pleading requirements of CPLR 3013.

That response is in a response submitted by… The Trump Organization Inc. Obviously.

Not surprisingly, prosecutors were not amused. In a Jan. 31 letter to Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, Senior Enforcement Counsel Kevin Wallace described the defendants’ answers as “flawed in many ways.” He also accused the parties, which include the former president, his three eldest children, and a host of Trump companies, of continuing to advance defenses that will be heard rejected by the court:

Defendants falsely deny facts they have admitted in other proceedings, they deny sufficient knowledge to respond to factual allegations clearly within their knowledge, and they assert affirmative defenses that have been repeatedly denied by This court as worthless and without merit.

Less than a month ago, Justice Engoron threatened to punish the lawyers in this case for frivolous litigation, especially Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba, former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise, who represents some of the entities of Trump, and Cliff Robert, adviser to the three Trump children. .

“As this Court noted in the oral argument on the preliminary injunction, said defendants make the same arguments based on the same facts and the same law, and thus appear subject to the issue and/or claim of avoid (case law),” he wrote in a chilling January 4 email.

In the event, he withdrew, holding on January 6 that, “in its discretion, this Court will not impose sanctions, which it believes are unnecessary, having made its point.”

In light of the defense’s latest filings, prosecutors argued, “However, it does not appear that this point has been taken, and the OAG will ask the Court to renew the issue.”

As reported by the Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery, Justice Engoron actually renewed the issue in a hearing this morning. And, although he declined to impose penalties, the judge told the defendants to go back and do their homework again, sans all the bullshit.

“In my 35 years of practicing law, I have never, never… seen a pleading with so much verbiage as 300-page-or-so answers to 15-or-so answers to the complaint ,” he said, adding later that he remains “determined to begin the trial on October 2, 2023, come hell or high water,” and that no further dilatory tactics will be tolerated.

Pagliery also noted that the defense team added NYAG veteran Armen Morian, who at one point chastised his former colleagues for their aggressive position, calling it “a bad look for our office.” (Does he know who he signed up to represent?)

It’s an interesting confluence of events, as Trump appears to be substituting Habba in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case for defense attorney Joseph Tacopina in preparation for the April trial. Maybe the former president has finally realized that all the crazy things his favorite lawyer says on Newsmax are definitely not helpful in front of an actual court?

Guess we’ll find out when the revised answers drop in a few weeks.

Judge Gives Trump Lawyers a Second Chance in New York Trial Showdown [Daily Beast]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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