- Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump's former budget director, blasted NY AG Letitia James' Trump case.
- Now a never-Trumper, Mulvaney asks of James' lawsuit, 'Who's the victim here?'
Former Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney floated a theory on Twitter that even if New York Attorney General Letitia James is right about the Trump family allegedly playing fast and loose with financial information for decades, it's still basically a victimless crime.
—Mick Mulvaney (@MickMulvaney) September 22, 2022
"Let me get this straight: the AG is suing him for fraud... when he borrowed money...and then paid it back?" Mulvaney, who has distanced himself from the embattled former president since the deadly siege at the US Capitol, posted on social media Thursday.
"Seriously, who is the victim here?"
Mulvaney, who served as budget director and chief of staff in the Trump White House, sided with the former president Friday despite now being a vocal never-Trumper.
In August, Mulvaney called Trump the only Republican who could lose to a Democrat in the 2024 election. "I hope he doesn't run," Mulvaney said in an interview with NewsNation.
Trump, too, has raised this "who's the victim" defense in response to James' 200-plus page lawsuit, which asks a Manhattan judge for cash and regulatory relief that could cripple the Trump Organization, his real estate and golf resort empire.
"By the way, I paid 'em back," Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity soon after the lawsuit dropped on Wednesday.
"They didn't lose money," Trump said. In fact, "The banks made a lot of money," he said. "She's trying to defend banks that got paid off."
James' lawsuit alleges that Trump enriched himself by an undeserved $250 million by lying over the past decade to Deutche Bank and other lenders on financial documents.
The people of New York are the victims, she alleges, claiming the money he borrowed by false pretenses was then unavailable to the state's other, law-abiding businesses and residents.
"Trump's crimes are not victimless," she told reporters in unveiling the lawsuit.
"When the well-connected and powerful break the law to get more money than they're entitled to, it reduces resources available to working people, small businesses, and taxpayers."