New York
\nA New York judge has rejected a bid by Donald Trump\u2019s lawyers to throw out a state lawsuit that alleges the President disregarded the law in running his charitable foundation and instead used it as a wing of his presidential campaign.<\/p>\n
But, in the ruling posted on Friday, State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla reiterated that she would be forced to drop Trump from the lawsuit if a state appeals court weighing an unrelated case decides that a sitting president can\u2019t be sued in state court.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Scarpulla said, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood\u2019s lawsuit alleging that Trump used the nonprofit Trump Foundation\u2019s money to settle business disputes and boost his political fortunes can move forward.<\/p>\n
Scarpulla rebuffed the contention of Trump\u2019s lawyers that the lawsuit was politically motivated. Given the seriousness of the allegations, she said, there was no basis for finding that \u201canimus and bias were the sole motivating factors\u201d for the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we detailed in our petition earlier this year, the Trump Foundation functioned as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr Trump\u2019s business and political interests,\u201d Underwood said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are rules that govern private foundations and we intend to enforce them, no matter who runs the foundation.\u201d Trump\u2019s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, said he\u2019s confident the president\u2019s side will ultimately prevail.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision means only that the case goes forward,\u201d Futerfas said in a statement. \u201cAs we have maintained throughout, all of the money raised by the Foundation went to charitable causes to assist those most in need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman started investigating the Trump Foundation in 2016 after The Washington Post reported that its spending personally benefited the presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
Underwood was appointed to replace Schneiderman in May, when he resigned amid allegations that he physically abused women he dated. Schneiderman, a Democrat, has said he accepts \u201cfull responsibility\u201d for his conduct and apologised \u201cfor any and all pain\u201d he caused.<\/p>\n
Whether Trump remains a defendant in the Trump Foundation case hinges on how a state appeals court rules in former \u201cApprentice\u201d contestant Summer Zervos\u2019 defamation lawsuit against the president.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s lawyers argue that a sitting president can\u2019t be sued in state court over conduct outside official duties, something Scarpulla and the trial judge in the Zervos case reject.<\/p>\n
Scarpulla wrote in her ruling that allowing the Trump Foundation case to proceed in state court is \u201centirely consistent\u201d with the US Supreme Court\u2019s 1997 ruling that forced then-President Bill Clinton to face a federal sexual harassment lawsuit concerning an alleged encounter while he was governor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York A New York judge has rejected a bid by Donald Trump\u2019s lawyers to throw out a state lawsuit that alleges the President disregarded the law in running his charitable foundation and instead used it as a wing of his presidential campaign. But, in the ruling posted on Friday, State Supreme Court Justice Saliann […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48217,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48215\/revisions\/48217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}