Eric Trump lashes out at New York’s top prosecutor in unhinged Fox News rant

Trump Organization Executive Vice President Eric Trump on Monday lashed out at New York Attorney General Letitia James’s probe into his family's eponymous business, claiming that it is unconstitutional for her office to file lawsuits against his father, twice-impeached former President Donald Trump.

The former president filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the probe last month in federal court, claiming Ms James’s efforts “are in no way connected to legitimate law enforcement goals, but rather, are merely a thinly-veiled effort to publicly malign Trump and his associates”.

The younger Mr Trump, the former president’s middle son, made the factually incorrect comments during an unhinged rant on Fox News’s Hannity programme, in which he claimed Ms James’s investigation into whether his family business violated New York tax laws is meant to keep his father from running for president in 2024 and amounts to “effectively handing” that election to President Joe Biden.

“You have Letitia James out there, probably the most unethical prosecutor in the history of the United States, who literally said on video ‘I'm going to go into office every single day and I'm going to sue Trump and then I'm going to go home’,” he said. “She ran on the campaign promise of suing my father because she didn't believe in his political party, because she didn't like us, because the people of Washington, DC told her to do that. It violates the Constitution, it's unethical, it's wrong.”

He later added that the investigation, which Ms James’s office is conducting alongside the Manhattan district attorney’s office and has resulted in an indictment against the company, is “third rate stuff” akin to tactics used by strongmen in Russia or Venezuela.

In October 2020, Eric Trump sat for a deposition in the long-running probe after being ordered to appear by a New York judge.

Earlier this month, Ms James’s office disclosed that it had also issued subpoenas to compel his siblings Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr to give evidence in depositions with her office. The two Trump children and their father have filed papers seeking to quash the subpoena or delay their testimony until the criminal probe now overseen by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has concluded.

The Trumps have claimed that Ms James’s subpoena is being used as an end-run around the criminal grand jury operating under Mr Bragg’s direction because under New York law, anyone who testifies before a grand jury receives immunity from prosecution.

The Independent has contacted Ms James’s office for comment.