Unable to persuade the Florida lawyers to stand down Wednesday, the Trump Organization’s general counsel, Alan Garten, then took aim at Mr. Epshteyn, blaming him in an email to Mr. Epshteyn and other lawyers for the filing of the suit, said the people with knowledge of the discussion. Frustrations with Mr. Epshteyn among some of Mr. Trump’s other aides and representatives have been brewing for months and boiled over with the new legal action.
Another lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, a former Florida solicitor general, also objected to the filing of the lawsuit on Wednesday. And Mr. Trump’s legal team in New York expressed concern that the Florida lawsuit would undermine their defense in Ms. James’s case, costing them credibility with both the New York attorney general’s office and the judge overseeing the case, the people with knowledge of the matter said.
Indeed, on Thursday, Ms. James filed a letter with the New York judge, saying that Mr. Trump’s Florida lawsuit demonstrated that the former president was “attempting to shield the key documents governing the structure of his business conglomerate and ownership of his business assets from review.”
One person close to Mr. Trump who was briefed on the Florida suit insisted it was meritorious, because Ms. James had focused on Mr. Trump’s revocable trust, a legal entity that owns the Trump Organization, and Florida’s laws governing trusts and wills are relevant.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said that Ms. James is seeking to “go after my revocable trust and pry into my private estate plan, only to look for ways to recklessly injure me, my family, my businesses, and my tens of millions of supporters.”
A spokeswoman for Ms. James said in a statement that “multiple judges have dismissed Donald Trump’s baseless attempts to evade justice, and no number of lawsuits will deter us from pursuing this fraud.”
“We sued Donald Trump because he committed extensive financial fraud,” the statement said. “That fact hasn’t changed.”
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