Glen Cove, New York – Assemblymember Charles Lavine (D-North Shore) has released the following statement in response to the indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James. The case was brought on at the urging of President Donald Trump after his vowing of retribution against some of his biggest political enemies:

“Though not specifically taught in our law schools, the Duck Test is one of the most valuable of all jurisprudential rules:

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

Before serving as Chair of the New York State Assembly Judiciary Committee and as Ethics Committee Chair, I represented clients on complex matters in our criminal courts for more than 30 years. I specialized in representing people who were cooperators on major national and international cases and had the opportunity to work closely with some of our finest federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents.

Trump’s prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James is appalling and disgusting. The Duck Test establishes beyond even the slightest shadow of a reasonable doubt that our attorney general is the victim of a purely vindictive, selective, and unfair prosecution. Attorney General James was indicted by the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after Trump forced the previous prosecutor to resign because he had refused to charge either James or former FBI Director James Comey, because there was no proof. Indicting their political opponents is the trademark of dictators.

As John Locke long ago observed, “wherever law ends, tyranny begins.”