New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has spent much of the past few months challenging United States President Donald Trump, building off a rocky past with Trump.

Schneiderman, elected attorney general in 2010, has a tumultuous past with the president. While running for attorney general, Trump donated $12,500 to help Schneiderman defeat Republican Dan Donovan in the election, according to Politico.

Once taking office, though, Schneiderman began investigating Trump University, the controversial and now-defunct for-profit company that existed from 2005-10. That investigation was the beginning of the now longstanding public feud between the two.

Now, Schneiderman — along with other state attorney generals — has started to fight Trump’s more controversial decisions during his presidency.

The New York state attorney general in particular has more legal power than in other states, notably in business matters. Through the Martin Act general business law, the attorney general has the ability to force change for large businesses, such as those on Wall Street. While it was introduced into law in 1921, the Martin Act general law received a large amount of publicity when former state attorney general Eliot Spitzer ordered 10 investment banks to pay $1.4 billion for misleading investors in 2003.

Although Schneiderman has not used this law against Trump, he and his office had the power to sue Trump in 2013 due to his “swindling” of American citizens out of millions of dollars, according to a statement released after the settlement of the Trump University case in November 2016.

Schneiderman did not stop there in pursuing Trump. Before the inauguration, Schneiderman provided local officials in New York with information regarding laws and policies that would clarify how the state would respond to cities that declared themselves to be “sanctuaries” for immigrants, such as Syracuse.

After the president signed an executive order that threatened to cut sanctuary cities’ federal funding, Schneiderman also defended his constituents in a statement.

“The President lacks the constitutional authority to cut off funding to states and cities simply because they have lawfully acted to protect immigrant families,” he said in the statement.

In March, Schneiderman hired Howard Master as a senior enforcement counsel, who will directly focus on corruption issues regarding the White House. Master was an assistant U.S. attorney who worked under Preet Bharara, who was fired by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions for refusing to submit a letter of resignation this year, after working as a federal prosecutor under former President Barack Obama.

While this decision received national attention, it is not uncommon or unusual for state attorney generals to hire from the U.S. Attorney’s office, said James Tierney, a Columbia law professor, in an email.

Schneiderman also announced that he would lead a 23-state and locality coalition to oppose Trump’s executive order aimed at eliminating the Clean Power Plan rule. Of 22 Democratic U.S. state attorneys in total, 15 signed onto Schneiderman’s plan, including state attorneys from California, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

“Addressing our country’s largest source of carbon pollution — existing fossil fuel-burning power plants — is both required under the Clean Air Act and essential to mitigating climate change’s growing harm to our public health, environments, and economies,” Schneiderman said in a statement.

While Schneiderman has received recognition for his work against the president, other state attorney generals are also working to combat the president’s orders.

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced on Jan. 30 that his state would challenge Trump’s executive order that banned entry for non-citizens and refugees from seven Middle Eastern countries. Then, after the president revised his travel ban, Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin filed a lawsuit, which stated that the order would harm the Muslim population within the state.

Published on March 28, 2017 at 11:02 pm

Contact William: wgmuoio@syr.edu