Legal experts stunned by court ruling that could 'whittle down' fraud case against Trumps

A state court may have handed Donald Trump and his family a major legal victory in New York.

An appellate court last month dismissed Ivanka Trump from attorney general Letitia James' fraud lawsuit against the family and their business, ruling June 27 that some of the allegations were too old to be included in the complaint. That could eventually chip away at the fraud case, reported The Daily Beast.

“The time has rung,” said Cardozo Law School professor Alexander A. Reinert, who examined the appellate opinion. “It gives an opportunity to the defendants to whittle down the claims.”

The ruling shows that Trump's signature stalling tactics work, and it could call into question the "continuing wrong doctrine" that James is using to show the former president and his family were continuing to profit from their lies. But the appellate court 's decision dismissing Ivanka may have shielded the rest of the family from crimes allegedly committed previous to 2014.

“It’s puzzling," said Daniel L. Feldman, a former attorney at the AG’s office who currently teaches at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "There’s continuing harm and wrong. You could say that the fraud hasn’t ended, even though the misrepresentation or omission took place long ago."