N.J. Attorney General Matthew Platkin during a livestream press conference.
The state’s attorney general promised a legal battle if the incoming president makes good on some of his campaign promises that could violate the Constitution.
Attorney General Matthew Platkin addressed Project 2025 prior to a planned press conference about gun safety initiatives.
The 900-plus-page report published by the Heritage Foundation last year has been a point of controversy and allegations that Donald Trump, now the president-elect, would use it as a blueprint to do away with constitutional law.
“Rest assured, we are ready to step in and I will be prepared to sue him and see him in court,” Platkin said. “It is not something I wake up every day dying to do. It is not the reason that I was honored to take this job. But it is something I’m now prepared to do to protect the residents of this state.”
He noted that taking President Trump to court is something he and other attorneys general did under the first Trump administration, and were successful more than 80 percent of the time “because of his administration routinely violating the law.”
The election was safe and lawful, Platkin said, and gave a message.
“It was clear last week and it’s been clear in public opinion polling,” he said. “People are fed up with the status quo and the sense that the people they put in positions of authority do not work for them,
that there’s a corruption to the system that they feel. They feel it deeply.”
He saw that reflected during a regular meeting he has with Trenton students ranging in age from 16 to 18.
When he asked, “How many of you feel your leaders are working for you?” no hands went up, Platkin said.
“Who are they working for?” resulted in a unison response of “themselves.”
Platkin said it was not surprising “when they see leaders in this state gut transparency laws and campaign finance laws.”
“I think it’s time for people in positions of authority in this state to spend a little more time questioning their own role in creating a system for enabling a system of corruption and a little less time threatening those of us who are trying to do something about it,” he said.
The YouTube livestream where he made his comments had comments turned off.
