Judge Rules Donald Trump, Two Of His Children Must Be Deposed By NY Attorney General
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump and two of his adult children must give depositions in a long-running civil investigation into the family’s business practices, The Washington Post reports. This ruling means the trio could face hours of uncomfortable questioning by investigators in the near future.
Attorneys for Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump tried to get subpoenas for their testimony and related documents thrown out in a series of recent court filings and at a hearing Thursday (Feb. 17) morning. They accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of trying to circumvent the legal process by seeking evidence for the civil matter that she could also use to build a criminal case against the former president and his businesses.
James, who has called herself a partner in a criminal probe originated by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, is conducting a parallel civil inquiry that has covered the same subject areas: whether asset valuations Trump and the Trump Organization provided to potential lenders, tax authorities and insurance brokers were false or inflated and amounted to wrongdoing.
Trump has sued James over the inquiry, calling it politically motivated and saying it violates his constitutional rights. That lawsuit is still pending in federal court in Syracuse, N.Y.
In an eight-page ruling on Thursday (Feb. 17) afternoon, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron denied a request by the family to quash James’s subpoenas in the civil case or to put off enforcing them until the conclusion of the criminal probe. One of the lawyers for the Trumps said he plans to appeal.
Engoron wrote that calling the Trumps to testify for the civil matter doesn’t mean their protection against self-incrimination will be trampled on since they can plead the Fifth Amendment.
“When they are deposed, the [Trumps] will have the right to refuse to answer any questions that they claim might incriminate them, and that refusal may not be commented on or used against them in a criminal prosecution,” Engoron wrote.
Eric Trump, another son of Trump’s who has served as an executive at the Trump Organization, asserted his Fifth Amendment right over 500 times when he was deposed in the same case, the attorney general’s office previously disclosed.
Trump attorney Alina Habba argued that James shouldn’t be permitted to bring her civil case because she disparaged the former president publicly while running for office. Alan Futerfas, representing Trump’s son and daughter, said by bringing a civil case, James was doing an “end around the grand jury” convened in the criminal case.
Wallace, from the attorney general’s office, argued that “what matters is the substance of the investigation, the substance of what we’ve found. And we’ve been very detailed in what we’ve found.”
He added the idea that the office cannot pursue both a criminal case and criminal inquiry at the same time “is not accurate.”
Trump’s use of financial statements to report his wealth to various parties is a key issue in both the civil and the criminal probe and has also been under the microscope by Congress. The scrutiny on Capitol Hill intensified this week, after a court filing by James included a report from Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars. The report said the financial statements the firm helped prepare for Trump could no longer be relied on and suggested that any recipient of the documents be alerted.
On Thursday, two congressional Democrats cited that report in asking the General Services Administration to consider terminating Trump’s federal lease for the hotel he built at the Old Post Office building in downtown Washington, a few blocks from the White House.
Trump’s company is preparing to sell the hotel lease shortly, in a deal that is expected to close this spring and is likely to net his company a profit of more than $100 million. It was a popular gathering place for his supporters during his four years in office.
In their letter to the GSA, Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (N.Y.) and Gerald E. Connolly (Va.), the top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, say that the disclosures from Mazars warrant a closer look at the lease. The lawmakers point specifically to a clause in the lease requiring that any information provided by the leaseholder to a bank “ … shall be true and correct in all material respects …”
That language, Maloney and Connolly wrote, provides the GSA an opportunity to address what they call “the grave damage this inappropriate lease has done to presidential ethics and integrity in government contracting.”
The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter to the GSA. But in a news release Tuesday, Trump pointed out that Mazars had not audited his financial statements anyhow, which the accountants sometimes disclosed in cover letters attached to the documents.
“My company has among the best real estate and other assets anywhere in the world, has significant amounts of cash, and has relatively very little debt, which is totally current,” Trump said in the release. A spokesman for Deutsche Bank, which lent Trump $170 million to develop the hotel, declined to comment.
If recent history is any guide, there is little reason to expect the agency will take action in response to the letter from Maloney and Connolly. Democrats in Congress have been raising concerns about the hotel lease since Trump’s 2016 campaign. But the agency, under presidents Barack Obama, Trump, and now Biden, has claimed that the Trump Organization is in compliance with the lease and has not taken any additional action.
GSA spokeswoman Channing Grate said in a statement Thursday that the agency “has taken, and will continue to take, steps to ensure that the tenant is in compliance with the terms and conditions of the lease.”
“GSA is committed to ensuring a thorough and appropriate review process” of the proposed sale of the property, Channing said, to make sure the buyer meets basic criteria of being able to finance the purchase and manage the building.