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Why isn't Donald Trump in cuffs if AG's probe found potential crimes?
NEW YORK (AP) - New York's attorney general says her three-year investigation of former President Donald Trump uncovered potential crimes in the way he ran his real estate empire, including allegations of bank and insurance fraud.So why isn't Trump being prosecuted?Attorney General Letitia James didn't seek to slap handcuffs on the Republican this week, as some of his critics hoped. Instead, she announced a civil lawsuit seeking $250 million and his permanent banishment from doing business in the state.Like many things involving the law and Trump, the reasons James, a Democrat, opted for a lawsuit rather than a prosecution are complicated.For one, even if she did want to prosecute Trump, she doesn't have jurisdiction under state law to bring a criminal case against him or any of the lawsuit's other defendants, including the Trump Organization and his three eldest children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump.In New York, the state attorney general's office is only allowed to prosecute a limited range of offenses on its own, like bid rigging and payroll violations.Otherwise, the office must partner with a county district attorney on a prosecution — as James' office did with the Manhattan district attorney's office in a case against Trump's longtime finance chief — or obtain what's known as a criminal referral from the governor or a state agency that has jurisdiction over the alleged wrongdoing.New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization alleging business fraud involving several assets, including properties in Manhattan, Chicago and Washington, D.C.