Left: New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference regarding former President Donald Trump and his family’s financial fraud case on September 21, 2022, in New York (YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images). Right: Donald Trump speaks at a ‘Save America’ rally on October 22, 2022, in Robstown, Texas (Brandon Bell/Getty Images).
A conservative attorney rumored as a potential top cabinet appointee for president-elect Donald Trump issued a stark warning to New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday.
“Let me just say this to ‘Big Tish’ James, the New York attorney general: I dare you. I dare you to try to continue your lawfare against President Trump in his second term because listen here, sweetheart, we’re not messing around this time,” Mike Davis, the former chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said.
The threat was then crystallized with a body-shaming insult about the Empire State’s top law enforcement official.
“We will put your fat a–– in prison for conspiracy against rights,” Davis said during an appearance on “The Benny Show,” the eponymous YouTube program hosted by conservative columnist Benny Johnson.
James, a Democrat, has been a constant and expensive thorn in Trump’s side during the interregnum-like Joe Biden presidency – but her interest in the 45th and 47th president goes back much further.
An underlying investigation by James’ office dates back to 2019 and is premised on sworn congressional testimony from Trump’s former friend and fixer Michael Cohen in 2019. Under questioning by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Cohen claimed the Trump Organization inflated assets to insurance companies and that the company’s tax returns likely contained similar financial improprieties.
A $250 million civil fraud lawsuit was brought against Trump, his children, and the Trump Organization by James in September 2022.
Fast-forward a year or so.
In September 2023, the former and forthcoming president, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, several of their top lieutenants, and various corporate organizations that comprise the Trump family business were found to have committed fraud by a Manhattan judge on a series of motions for summary judgment filed by James and her office. The court also saw fit to issue costly cancellations of numerous licenses that allowed the Trumps to do business in New York State. Additionally, several of Trump’s attorneys were personally sanctioned $7,500 each for making frivolous arguments orally and in motions.
A bench trial — a trial without a jury — on the extent of liability was held between October and December 2023. In February, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron arrived at a penalty just shy of the $370 million the state had asked for in January.
As the bills, substantial civil fines with crushing amounts of interest in this case, came due, Trump and his lawyers on one side battled it out with James, her fellow lawyers, and Engoron on the other.
As the case wore on, James threatened to seize Trump’s assets; Trump said James was violating the law by trying to collect on the verdict by sidestepping procedure; Engoron rebuffed efforts to slow the process down. Then, after Trump posted a bond to appeal the verdict, James asked the court to rule the bond was simply not good enough but Trump pushed back, eventually catching a break this spring.
On appeal, Trump and his namesake business empire seem likely to fare much better.
During a hearing in late September, Trump’s arguments received a much warmer reception from the court than those essayed by James’ office. One judge on the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, First Department said the “immense penalty” issued against the Trump Organization in the case was “troubling.”
Since then, the court has given no indication of a resolution – though a substantial paring back of the verdict appears to be probable.
And, then, on Nov. 5, Trump handily dispatched Vice President Kamala Harris with a lopsided victory in the electoral college.
Now, Trump and his allies are signaling the gloves are off.
Davis, who previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and now runs an organization that advocates for appointing conservative movement judges, has been bandied about as a potential Trump White House attorney general pick in a recent story by the Wall Street Journal. That report also said Trumpworld was looking at Davis “for another legal-related post in the administration.”
While Davis jokingly shrugged off the Journal’s report in a post on X (formerly Twitter), his aggressive stance towards James suggests he expects to play some sort of role in the incoming administration.
“I promise you,” Davis continued. “Think long and hard before you wanna violate President Trump’s constitutional rights or any other American’s constitutional rights. It’s not gonna happen again.”
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