Trump criticizes 'corrupt' New York Attorney General Letitia James for being 'stuck' at a fraud trial instead of campaigning

Former President Donald Trump attacked Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James upon exiting Lower Manhattan Court on Wednesday, the third day of his civil fraud trial regarding the alleged overvaluation of his assets, as Fox News reported.

After exiting the courtroom, Trump addressed the gathering media and lamented being "stuck" at the trial instead of campaigning for the presidency. He accused James of conspiring with the Department of Justice to keep him off the campaign trail.

"I'm here, stuck here, and I can't campaign. I'd rather be right now in Iowa. I'd rather be in New Hampshire or South Carolina or Ohio or a lot of other places. But I'm stuck here because I have a corrupt attorney general that communicates with the DOJ in Washington to keep me nice and busy because I'm leading Biden in the polls by a lot," Trump said.

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"This is election interference. They made up a fake case, these fraudulent people. And the judge already knows what he's going to do. He's a Democrat judge. In all fairness to him, he has no choice," Trump said.

"I know this city better than anybody who knows this city. Nobody knows it like I do. He's a Democrat judge out of the clubhouses, he's controlled, and it's a shame. What's going on here is a shame. Our whole system is corrupt. This is corrupt, Atlanta is corrupt, and what's coming out of D.C. is corrupt."

During the investigation in 2021, James ran for governor of New York but pulled out after two months to instead compete for re-election as attorney general, prompting Trump to accuse her of wanting "the publicity" from targeting him and his money.

Trump also took the opportunity to criticize the trial's presiding judge, Arthur Engoron, for putting a low estimate on the value of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, which Trump thinks should be "50 to 100 times more than that."

"The smallest house in Palm Beach is probably worth $50 million. And this is the biggest, the best anywhere in the country. There's nothing like it," Trump said. "And by the way, my financial documents are valued much less than my actual value, which nobody even knows. But the financial documents that I gave to the bank are much less than my actual net worth.

"They can't be fraudulent because I gave them lower numbers. I'm probably one of the only people ever to seek a loan — I didn't even need the loan, because you see the kind of cash I have. I didn't even need loans," he added.

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Trump continued by saying he had never intended to become public with the amount of money he had amassed from the success of his private company, but that James' lawsuit compelled him to do so. Also, he said, "no case" could be made against him by her side.

While Trump was amassing his real estate empire, Engoron concluded this week that he and his company committed fraud by lying about his wealth and overstating the value of his properties on documents used to secure financing from banks and insurance companies.

James filed a lawsuit against Trump, the Trump children, and the Trump Organization, claiming that Trump "inflated his net worth by billions of dollars" and that the children helped him do so. The trial is slated to continue this week.