An attorney representing Donald Trump has urged New York Attorney General Letitia James to drop her expansive fraud lawsuit against the president-elect, citing a need to prioritize unity for the sake of “the health of our Republic.” However, legal expert and former prosecutor Harry Litman has sharply criticized the argument, calling parts of the appeal “grotesque.”
D. John Sauer, one of Trump’s lawyers and recently named solicitor general, submitted the request in a letter on Tuesday. Sauer’s argument invoked historical figures and themes of national healing, including a reference to George Washington’s farewell address and Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation. Sauer claimed that dismissing the lawsuit, which seeks $350 million in damages, would align with Lincoln’s call for Americans to “heal wounds of the nation.”
Litman, writing in his Talking Feds Substack, found the rhetoric offensive and manipulative. “Sauer tries to paint a portrait of Trump as a benevolent uniter, urging Americans to put country over partisan strife,” Litman wrote. “It is as attractive a product as Trump’s thousand-dollar made-in-China Bible.”
Litman argued that Trump’s presidency and behavior are antithetical to the ideals Sauer invoked. “Trump is the chief cause of the partisan strife, and his submission, far from being in the interest of the greater good of the country, is a characteristically self-centered ploy to get away with millions of dollars in civil liability and elude the consequences of the legal system and his own wrongdoing,” he wrote.
While Litman found Sauer’s use of Washington’s address pompous, it was the invocation of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation that he described as “hard to read with equanimity.” Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation called for unity and gratitude during the Civil War, a sentiment Sauer echoed in his appeal to dismiss the fraud charges.
“This is grotesque on too many levels to easily count,” Litman wrote. “It’s hard to think of any figure in American politics who is less solemn, reverential, and, in particular, grateful than Trump. His candidacy, campaign, and rule foster and depend on the mean-spirited and deep divide in the hearts and voices of the nation.”
Litman criticized the cynicism of invoking Lincoln to support Trump’s bid for legal immunity. “The deep profanity in applying Lincoln’s words… to Trump’s dull-witted and contemptuous demand to get off yet another legal hook is staggering,” he concluded, adding that such rhetoric underscores Trump’s exploitation of public power for personal gain.
The fraud lawsuit remains a significant legal challenge for Trump, and Sauer’s appeal highlights the continued political and legal battles surrounding the president-elect as he prepares to take office.