Trump asks New York Attorney General Letitia James to drop civil fraud case

Lawyers for President-elect Donald Trump wrote a letter to New York's Attorney General Letitia James, asking her to dismiss their civil fraud case against the Republican front-runner, his family and his businesses to "heal" the wounds of political division.

In a lengthy request, D. John Sauer, Trump's lawyer, cited that the president-elect won a historic election victory and that the charges for which the Republican front-runner is indicted did not hurt anyone.

"In furtherance of our conversations with your office, we write to request that you completely dismiss the above-referenced case against President Donald J. Trump, his family, and his businesses, and stipulate to vacate the Judgment and dismiss all claims with prejudice," Sauer said in the letter, first reported by Fox News Digital.

"President Trump has called for our Nation’s partisan strife to end, and for the contending factions to join forces for the greater good of the country," the attorney wrote. "This call for unity extends to the legal onslaught against him and his family that permeated the most recent election cycle."

In the case that James led, Trump was ordered to pay a $454 million civil fraud judgment. While the president-elect appealed the judgment and judges in a New York appeals court appeared open to the possibility of reversing the sentence entirely, lawyers for the Republican front-runner have asked the New York attorney general to follow in the footsteps of others who have dropped their cases against Trump.

In particular, Sauer said the civil case against Trump served as a tipping point for raising the country's political tensions and that he witnessed it first hand.

"As counsel for President Trump in this appeal—and now as his nominee for Solicitor General of the United States—I have had the opportunity to experience this partisan division personally, and I strongly believe that it is necessary for the health of our Republic for the strife and lawfare to end," he wrote in the letter. "You now have the singular opportunity to help cure this division."

The lawyer insisted that the case against Trump left "no victims, no complaints, no misstatements, no causation, and no injuries or losses."

"Instead, President Trump provided clear and unambiguous disclaimers to sophisticated commercial parties who made decisions based on their own due diligence," the president-elect's lawyer said. "Every loan and insurance payment was made in full, and either on time or early."