A ruling by a New York state court of appeals last month that was viewed as a vindication for former President Donald Trump and his family stunned legal professionals and a number of those on the left.

Ivanka Trump was withdrawn as a co-defendant in a fraud case brought by Attorney General Letitia James against Ivanka Trump, her family, and their company. The court ruled on June 27 that some of the allegations were too ancient to be included in the complaint.

The Daily Beast reported that the development could weaken the Trump family’s overall case for fraud.

Professor of law at Cardozo Law School Alexander A. Reinert, who examined the appeal judgment, reportedly remarked, “The time has rung. It gives an opportunity to the defendants to whittle down the claims.”

This decision demonstrates the effectiveness of Trump’s well-known delaying tactics and casts doubt on James’ use of the “continuing wrong doctrine” to support his claim that the Trump family continues to profit from falsehoods. As a result of the appellate court’s decision to dismiss Ivanka’s case, the rest of the family may have been shielded from prosecution for alleged offenses that occurred prior to 2014, according to the article.

“It’s puzzling,” said Daniel L. Feldman, a former attorney with the Attorney General’s office who has since become a professor at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “There’s continuing harm and wrong. You could say that the fraud hasn’t ended, even though the misrepresentation or omission took place long ago.”

CNN reports that the former president and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump remain co-defendants. According to a press release issued by James in September 2022, the Trumps engaged in “years of financial fraud to obtain a variety of economic benefits.”

“The lawsuit alleges that Donald Trump, with the help of his children Donald Trump, Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, and senior executives at the Trump Organization, falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to induce banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company, to satisfy continuing loan covenants, to induce insurers to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums, and to gain tax benefits, among other things,” according to the outlet.

However, once the Trump Organization complied with New York’s demands, the appeals court confirmed that Ivanka was not affiliated with the company during the relevant time frame.

The court determined that by the time the tolling agreement was signed, Ivanka Trump was no longer included in the agreement’s definition of the “Trump Organization.”

The court continued that “The allegations against defendant Ivanka Trump do not support any claims that accrued after February 6, 2016. Thus, all claims against her should have been dismissed as untimely.”

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

Trump praised the decision and referred to James’ complaint as “election interference” in a post he made on his social media platform, Truth Social. He is currently leading a rising field of GOP hopefuls for president in 2024. CONTINUE READING…