Letitia James de New York is easily the most aggressive state prosecutor in the country with regard to the president of the Pursuit Donald Trump.
It is on the front line of 15 legal actions brought by coalitions of AG Democrats, all seeking to Block executive decrees and Doges CupsHis 454 million dollars fraud verdict against Trump and his real estate company remains on call in Manhattan.
But James' most daring excursion in Trumpworld may be the one she has not yet officially announced.
This is an underway investigation into the crime of potential initiate by the president's inner circle, focused on the pricing policies of the markets last month.
The so-called James investigation-The official name of a sort of probe that does not fall under a complete investigation-bypassing his second month, confirmed an Ag spokesperson with Business Insider, refusing to disclose details beyond saying that the office “examines” the possible initiate trade.
What does an investigation involve? And, more importantly, what are his chances?
Business Insider asked half a dozen legal experts, including three former high-level financial prosecutors from the New York office.
Opinions are wildly.
Some have underlined the perennial concerns concerning the offense of initiate by the members of the Congress. They described James' investigation an appropriate, even necessary exercise, of the power devolved to a Attorney General whose Manhattan office is three blocks north of the Stock Examination.
Others called on his investigation a political motivation boondoggy dedicated to failure. “This is a history of politics, not a history of law,” said Richard Epstein, professor of law at New York University.
But there was unanimity on two points. Proving the initiate's offense is notoriously difficult. And everything that happens behind the scenes is unprecedented.
“There is nothing like it,” said Manhattan Armen Morian's lawyer, a former financial crimes for the New York AG office who helped defend Trump during James' fraud case.
A gorilla of 800 pounds of a law
The investigation is empowered by Martin Act of New York, a 104 -year law which gives state prosecutors extraordinary police powers in Wall Street.
Legal experts call Martin Act the most powerful securities fraud in the country. It allows the GA to issue assignments, toast the suspects under oath and to deposit civil proceedings or criminal accusations.
In a 2018 test, Epstein called the Martin law “A gorilla of 800 pounds“A term, he said he was still being held.
He pursues real estate titles and fraud and is only rarely used for the offense of initiate, which is the illegal profit of stock advice not accessible to the public.
Legal experts and the three AG office veterans who brought prosecution under Martin law said that they had never heard of its use to investigate initiate advice involving government policy, in this case, prices in the event of Trump.
The novelty of James' investigation did not, in itself, condemned his effort, said that a former prosecutor of the financial crimes who asked not to be appointed, citing work constraints against the taking of the press.
“There is a corpus of law of initiates of Martin Act – but not on these exact facts – which has been developed over the decades,” said the former prosecutor. “And remember, the facts of each case are always new.”
What is an AG investigation and how does it work?
An “investigation” is what the New York AG office calls the first stage of an investigation – before the assignments launched, explains former prosecutor General Manisha Mr. Sheth. Now a partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Sheth has supervised the Division of Economic Justice of the GA.
Surveys in securities can be triggered by denunciation councils or by allegations which surfaces publicly in the press or a trial, she told Bi.
They are managed by the State Investors Protection Office, one of the six formerly supervised Sheth Divisions, she said. There, prosecutors working with AGS research analysts and data scientists would start by examining gross commercial data, she said. They will look for suspicious reasons.
Was there trading points, for example, on April 9, in the hours preceding Trump's publication on Truth Social: “It's time to buy !!!” trigger a recovery from the market?
At one point, the office would send a floating of “investigation letters”, authorized by the chief or the deputy chief of the office and signed by the assistant prosecutor who takes care of the case, said Sheth.
“These letters can request documents, data or information,” she said. “Sometimes the recipient of a letter of investigation can volunteer to meet the office to provide the requested information.”
Cooperation at this early stage is completely voluntary. If a case argues to the point that the assignments are published, an investigation will graduate in an investigation, said Sheth.
“I think it will start with the use of commercial data to show that no reasonable person would have engaged in these trades without this non -public information,” said Anthony Capozzolo, a former federal and state prosecutor.
“You will want, at the very least, to build an initial case which shows that it is very likely that the only motivation factor for these professions was this information allegedly in the information.”
Trump seated next to his lawyers during the 2023 civil fraud trial caused by James' office. Shannon Stapleton
More road roadblocks nowadays for collecting commercial data
The compilation of commercial data will be more difficult these days, predicted Capozzolo, partner of Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss in Manhattan and a former federal and state prosecutor.
Pre-Trump, the GA would regularly and easily request the Securities and Exchange committee for commercial data which is not already accessible to the public.
“Now the SEC is controlled by the Trump administration, and it could potentially ask the dry not to cooperate,” leading to an assignment battle, predicted Capozzolo.
The identification of suspicious negotiation models is only the start, said legal experts.
Let's say, only as a hypothetical, that an initiate of Trump has collected a small fortune by buying the drop in Apple shares just before Trump announces the rate rate for electronics from China which has shown the stock.
This is not enough to prove the negotiation of initiates, said legal experts. For this, James would need witnesses willing to testify that specific investments have been caused by inappropriate initiate advice.
“They try to force people to tell them who was present in the rooms,” said Capozzolo about prosecutors. “But the difficulty is that many of these things happened in the presence of Trump Trump and Maga Acolytes very higher.”
And anyone in Trump's circle would certainly fight a letter of investigation or a summons – and would do so strong.
“You will see an immediate challenge,” said Morian, who helped continue the CEO of the AIG, Hank Greenberg, in the longest case in the Martin Act in AG history.
“It will be the lock and load. In the minute when any assignment comes out, I would intervene immediately if I was at the Ministry of Justice, and I would say 'no. I can't do it. Sorry.'”
Trump's prosecution, burden or assignment is a non-beginner, given the executive privilege and presidential immunity, which prohibits prosecution for official acts, said Morian. (He predicts that presidential immunity would also extend to civil affairs one day, “if that went to the Supreme Court.”)
AG state assignments issued to the members of the executive – members of the cabinet and others – could also be disputed for reasons of executive privileges. And investigating the share exchange of the members of the congress would also lead to challenges, predicted Morian.
“If you exceed too far, you could easily see a private litigant to take this at the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court limiting the competence of the attorney general in a way that we have never seen before,” he said.
James is surveyed by the DoJ for alleged mortgage fraud, an allegation which she called baseless and that her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, called “an inappropriate political remuneration”, ” According to CBS.
If her initiate trading investigation is progressing, James, a democrat who campaigned for AG on a promise to investigate Trump, would he herself face accusations of political compensation and bias.
Over the years, Trump has denounced James' investigations into his finances and affairs as a baseless “racist” and part of a “political witch hunt”. On Friday, a spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comments on James' price request.
Then there is the difficulty inherent in caution Sorry to initiate – to tease all illegality of chaos of sudden market swings of billions of dollars.
“There is a huge amount of market problems whenever there is a major tariff initiative,” said Epstein.
How can we call it the negotiation of initiates if thousands of investors make similar transactions for benign reasons, on the basis of inspection, past experience or stupid luck, he asked.
“When the markets are also volatile, people earn and lose money in second position, for a number of reasons,” said Morian.
“There are so many contingent variables,” he added. “How do you discern the noise signal, to prove your case?”
