Is Joe Biden the next president? Will Donald Trump somehow get a second term? None of that matters to New York Attorney General Letitia James. Sticking with what has apparently been the only agenda she’s interested in since taking office, the self-avowed leader of the “Resistance” movement has launched yet another probe into the financial affairs of President Trump. This one comes with a bit of a twist, however, since she’s dragging the President’s daughter Ivanka into the mix. This time her questions involve consulting fees paid to Trump’s daughter through a company that she operated. So what crime may have been committed here? We have no idea because the anonymous sources that the New York Times cited when reporting on these developments didn’t say. (Associated Press)

New York’s attorney general has sent a subpoena to the Trump Organization for records related to consulting fees paid to Ivanka Trump as part of a broad civil investigation into the president’s business dealings, a law enforcement official said Thursday.

The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that a similar subpoena was sent to President Donald Trump’s company by the Manhattan district attorney, which is conducting a parallel criminal probe.

The Associated Press could not immediately independently confirm the district attorney’s subpoena but the one sent by Attorney General Letitia James was described by an official briefed on the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

At issue here, according to the Gray Lady’s anonymous sources, is $747,622 that was allegedly paid to Ivanka Trump’s firm over a period of “several years” for consulting services. Letitia James would like to know if those fees were legitimate or if they were part of a much larger pattern of payments designed to reduce the President’s tax liability. No suggestion is made that Ivanka Trump as done anything wrong by accepting the work.

For her part, Ivanka Trump described the probe as “harassment pure and simple.”

This is harassment pure and simple. This ‘inquiry’ by NYC democrats is 100% motivated by politics, publicity and rage. They know very well that there’s nothing here and that there was no tax benefit whatsoever. These politicians are simply ruthless.https://t.co/4dQoDzQlRX

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) November 20, 2020

If the payments were actually made and it can be shown that some reasonable services were rendered in return, the President shouldn’t have too much to worry about. Whether he got his money’s worth for his daughter’s consulting services is probably a question best left to his advisers. Were this any other Attorney General, I might assume that she had received some sort of complaint via the IRS and was looking for proof that some sort of tax dodge was going on. But since we’re talking about Ms. James, I’ll default to assuming that this is yet another fishing expedition intended to generate some headlines for her.

If James really wanted to look into someone paying family members huge sums of money for dubious purposes, perhaps New York’s Attorney General could look into the business relationship between Ilhan Omar and her husband’s political consulting firm the E Street Group. Tim Mynott’s firm received more than four times as much as Ivanka Trump did in less than two years to provide “consultant services” to a campaign that couldn’t have lost the last election if they tried. But no… I don’t suppose anyone would want to launch a probe into that, even though Mynott presumably pools his income with his wife’s finances. After all, they’re Democrats so they clearly wouldn’t do anything untoward. (Insert eye-rolling emoji here.)

As we’ve noted here in the past, Letitia James ran for office on a pledge to cause as much trouble for Donald Trump as she could possibly manage. Her interest in actually enforcing the laws of New York and prosecuting actual criminals has appeared minimal at best. And given the date and the current state of the presidential race, it appears obvious that James plans to continue her vendetta against Donald Trump even after he leaves office. The Attorney General’s blistering hatred of the President has truly left her unhinged.