Donald Trump Sues New York Attorney General To Block Fraud Probe: What you need to know

Former US President Donald Trump on Monday sued New York's Attorney General Letitia James, seeking to stop her civil fraud investigation into his company.

The lawsuit filed in a federal court in upstate New York claims that Letitia James, a Democrat, has violated Trump's constitutional rights with a politically motivated investigation.

James is probing whether the Trump Organization may have illegally reported false values on its properties, potentially to gain banking and tax advantages.

In a statement released Monday, James described Trump's lawsuit as "an attempted collateral attack" on the probe.

Trump's lawsuit comes after the Washington Post reported earlier this month that James had asked him to testify in person at her office on January 7.

She launched the investigation in March 2019 and suspects that the Trump Organization fraudulently overstated the value of certain properties when seeking bank loans, and later reported much smaller values when declaring assets so it could pay less tax.

In the lawsuit, Trump and the company claim that James, a Democrat, is motivated by partisan bias against Trump, a Republican, pointing to public statements she made against the former president before she was elected to her position.

They are seeking a court order barring the investigation from going forward.