Despite New York Attorney General Letitia James' dogged determination to see Donald Trump stripped of his ability to do business in the state and forced to pay massive financial penalties, a witness in his ongoing civil fraud trial just offered potentially pivotal testimony in the former president's favor, as Breitbart reports.

After having campaigned for the office on a promise that she would bring Trump to justice in some form or another, James ultimately charged the former president on civil charges involving the allegedly fraudulent undervaluation of his assets and net worth she says was done in order to wrongfully secure favorable terms from lenders and insurers.

Though president Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that fraud did occur, the proceedings currently underway have to do with, among other things, whether the massive penalties sought by James – which include the revocation of Trump's business certificates in the state and the imposition of $250 million in penalties -- are appropriate to the conduct at issue.

Trump's defense team has maintained that he did not engage in the type of fraud alleged, stated that he always included disclaimers about financial statements provided to the entities in question, and argued that the banks at issue were fully satisfied with the deals into which they entered, given that they made large profits on loans that were always repaid in a timely fashion.

The notion that there is no aggrieved party on whose behalf James purports to advocate was bolstered this week by testimony from executives from Deutsche Bank AG, an entity with which Trump and the Trump Organization did business during the time period involved in the case.

As Bloomberg News noted, David Williams of Deutsche Bank declared it was perhaps “atypical,” though “not entirely unusual” for his employer to cut the asset values stated by a prospective customer by half and still approve a loan application, as was the case with Trump deals.

Internal bank memos introduced in the case showed that the reason for such a practice was simply that the bank anticipated that it would generate profits from such deals by virtue of Trump's track record of success and other key indicators.

Williams explained, “As part of our due diligence, we subject a client's asset value to adjustments. It's part of our underwriting process, we apply it to every client regardless of what's reported.”

As legal scholar Jonathan Turley points out, the banks that did business with Trump made money as they intended by making loans that were repaid on time -- sometimes even early -- and none complained that they were injured in any way, making James' case all the more bizarre, given the enormity of the penalties she is seeking.

Not only was Deutsche Bank ultimately satisfied with the bargains it struck with Trump, another firm executive's emails revealed that the real estate mogul's business was aggressively sought and highly valued, as The Hill reports.

Communications between then-managing director Rosemary Vrablic and other Deutsche Bank employees indicated that Trump was considered a “whale” of a client that the institution was eager to land.

Once the bank did win Trump's business, its revenue from his deals jumped from roughly $13,000 in 2011 to roughly $6 million by 2013, seemingly supporting the former president's contention that there were no victims in the dealings that form the basis of James' case and that the financial representations at issue were largely irrelevant. “I've been dealing with banks for 50 years and probably know banks as well as anybody. I know what they look at. They look at the deal,” he said during testimony last month.

As such, Turley explains, James' apparent insistence on destroying Trump's ability to do business in the Empire State and forcing him to pay a staggering sum in penalties is all the more perplexing and could ultimately force constitutional review by a higher court.

Turley goes on to say that the bankers' testimony “highlights how out of proportion this effort has become,” and perhaps, in the eyes of millions of Americans, it also drives home the blatantly political nature of this prosecution and perhaps casts serious doubts on the motives underlying the numerous criminal charges that Trump is currently facing.