A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The Department of Justice is investigating an elected official who once won a lawsuit against President Trump. The Democratic attorney general of New York, Letitia James, accused Trump and his companies of lying about the value of their properties to get more favorable lending rates. Trump was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars. Now he's appealing that judgment, and he's called the case politically motivated. Here he is in January of last year, after the judge made his decision.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is not constitutional. This is wrong in every aspect, and the judge and the AG should be arrested and punished accordingly.
MARTÍNEZ: Now a federal grand jury is being asked to look into whether James violated Trump's rights and those of his family. The Department of Justice declined NPR's request for comment. James' lawyer, Abbe Lowell, joins us now. So how do you respond to the argument that Attorney General James violated the president's rights?
ABBE LOWELL: I think you have to go back to a book that everybody knows, even if they haven't read it, George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," which has the famous line about a government that engages in what's called doublespeak. I mean, think about what the president is doing. He has an office in the Department of Justice that is called something about the anti-weaponization office, headed by Ed Martin, who could not get confirmed himself to be a real prosecutor. And they are using that office to weaponize the Justice Department against the president's adversaries. So that's the first response.
The second response is that it is literally - and I know in the Trump administration, we tend to use the word unprecedented a lot, unfortunately, it's the case - unprecedented for the head of the executive to get somebody to start investigating one of his former adversaries by using the power of the government to get a grand jury in Albany to issue a subpoena calling for the retrieval of literally every piece of paper in the possession of the Office of Attorney General in the case that was brought against him and his companies. I know we get inured to the excess of authority that is happening in the last six months, but this strikes at such - the heart of the rule of law that people should pay attention.
MARTÍNEZ: The president and his allies have accused Letitia James of targeting Trump first for political reasons. So here's how she talked about the president during her 2022 campaign.
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LETITIA JAMES: I'm running for attorney general because I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president when our fundamental rights are at stake.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Abbe, what do you say to claims that this attorney general unfairly went after Trump, especially when she says things like that?
LOWELL: What happened to President Trump and his companies is that there was a lawsuit. He had enormous number of attorneys defending him. The Attorney General presented the case, and the court ruled against the president and awarded a half a billion dollars in judgments. If we are going to be a country of laws and process and we believe in the court system, then that's what really matters. He had his day. He's appealing it. He should appeal it, and if it wins, fine. And if he loses, then that's the way it's supposed to be.
MARTÍNEZ: But a federal grand jury has subpoenaed the attorney general's office. So what exactly are they asking for?
LOWELL: They literally have sent two requests. The first is for every piece of paper. For those who are not lawyers and don't litigate, the idea that you could send a subpoena for literally every piece of paper that an office has on a subject is itself unprecedented. Having said that, every piece of paper that the office generated or has in its possession about the case they brought against the National Rifle Association, another case in which there was an allegation of defrauding the members and the organization, of which there was a favorable verdict to the state of New York for millions of dollars. And every piece of paper that the office generated or has, in the case brought against President Trump and his companies, that's what it's asked for, and the office of attorney general will know how to respond to a subpoena or a request that is outside the bounds of the law, that will play itself out.
MARTÍNEZ: Any ballpark figure on how many pieces of paper that might be or how many boxes of paper that might be?
LOWELL: Let's put it this way, it wouldn't fit into a small car.
MARTÍNEZ: You also represent other people that have run afoul of the Trump administration, like former Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, also whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid. Why are you taking on these cases?
LOWELL: I have, in my legal career, challenged the overreach of administrations and government agencies in every administration since Ronald Reagan. And it doesn't matter whether or not those that were overreaching was a Republican administration or a Democratic administration. I've challenged both. The difference now is that this administration does it over and over again. So I guess the bottom line is this is consistent with what I and the people I'm working with have always done. There's just more of it to do.
MARTÍNEZ: Abbe Lowell is a lawyer representing New York Attorney General Letitia James. Abbe, thank you very much for your time.
LOWELL: Thank you for having me.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR asks the Department of Justice to respond to Abbe Lowell's statement that the DOJ Weaponization Working Group is itself weaponizing the Justice Department against President Trump's adversaries. The DOJ had no comment. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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