| Translate This News In |
|---|
A court ordered Thursday that former President Donald Trump must answer questions under oath in a civil probe of his business activities in New York state.
New York Attorney General Letitia James issued subpoenas in December, and Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., to comply.
Following a two-hour session with lawyers for the Trumps and James’ office, Engoron ordered Trump and his two children must sit for depositions within 21 days.
The eight-page decision is almost certain to be challenged, but if upheld, it might force the former president to choose between answering questions or remaining silent, citing his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, which he has previously condemned others for doing.
“THERE IS NO CASE!” Trump declared in a statement, accusing James’ office of “doing everything within their crooked discretion to interfere with my business dealings and the political process.” “The greatest Witch Hunt in history is continuing,” Trump said, “and remember, I can’t get a fair hearing in New York because of Judges and the judiciary’s hate for me.” “No way.”
James, a Democrat, said her inquiry has found evidence that Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, used “fraudulent or deceptive” assessments of properties such as golf courses and towers to obtain loans and tax breaks.
Engoron was told by Trump’s lawyers that having him sit for a civil deposition now, while his company is under criminal investigation, is an improper attempt to get around a state law prohibiting prosecutors from summoning someone to testify before a criminal grand jury without providing them with immunity.
Kevin Wallace, an attorney with the attorney general’s office, told Engoron that having civil and criminal investigations going on at the same time was not uncommon. A request by the Trumps’ counsel to halt the civil investigation until the criminal case was resolved was denied by the judge.
“Yes, Mr. Trump is a well-known person. Wallace remarked, “That’s one-of-a-kind.” “It’s unusual that so many people are paying attention to a drab hearing about subpoena enforcement.” However, the legal concerns we’re dealing with are rather common.”
Engoron ordered another Trump son, Eric Trump, to testify in 2020 after his lawyers abruptly cancelled a scheduled deposition in a previous legal fight stemming from James’ inquiry. Hundreds of times during his questioning, Eric Trump used the Fifth Amendment. When questioned by James’ lawyers, Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg did the same.
The decision eluded Trump’s rapid response. He denounced a “sham probe of a great corporation that has done a spectacular job for New York and beyond” and a racially motivated “continuation of a Witch Hunt the likes of which has never been seen in this Country before” in a statement released on Tuesday.
“We have an extremely unique case where we can show selective prosecution because she has put her comments out there so much and taken every opportunity to proclaim her vendetta against Donald Trump and his family to bring him down,” Habba said.
The thousands of pages of data Engoron has seen in the case demonstrate there is a sufficient foundation for continuing the investigation, and it refutes “the assumption that this ongoing investigation is based on personal animus, not facts and law,” he added.
The letter is a “red-flag warning that the Trump financial accounts are untrustworthy,” Engoron said, and he scolded Trump’s company for saying in a press statement that James’ probe should be shut down because the accounting firm found no substantial errors in the records. He called the claim “as bold as it is ludicrous.”
Based on facts gathered during James’ civil probe, the Manhattan district attorney’s office accused Weisselberg and the Trump Organization with tax fraud last summer. Weisselberg is suspected of obtaining over $1.7 million in illegal payments. Weisselberg and his firm have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
A court in Washington, D.C., ordered Weisselberg to take a limited deposition in Attorney General Karl Racine’s complaint alleging Trump’s inauguration committee of massively overspending at Trump’s Penn Avenue hotel to enrich Trump’s family.
