NY court rules Donald Trump, Ivanka, Don Jr must testify | Donald Trump News

A New York state judge ruled on Thursday that former President Donald Trump must answer questions under oath in a New York civil investigation into his business practices.

Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., to comply with subpoenas issued in December by New York Attorney General Letitia James who is probing Trump’s real estate development group.

Trump and his two children must sit for a deposition within 21 days, Engoron said issuing the ruling after a two-hour hearing with lawyers for the Trumps and James’ office.

“In the final analysis, a State Attorney General begins investigating a business entity, uncovers copious evidence of possible financial fraud, and wants to question, under oath, several of the entities’ principals, including its namesake. She has the clear right to do so, ”Engoron wrote in his decision.

James’s civil investigation parallels a separate criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office of Trump’s organization creating a difficult legal quandary for the former president and his family.

James has said her investigation has revealed evidence Trump’s company used “Fraudulent or misleading” valuations of assets like golf resorts and skyscrapers to get loans and tax benefits. But, if Trump testifies in the civil probe, anything he says could be used against him in the criminal investigation, his lawyers said.

Earlier this week James disclosed that Trump’s former accounting firm Mazars has disavowed its prior reports on Trump’s finances saying filings from 2011-2020 “should no longer be relied upon”.

Spurred by evidence uncovered in James’ civil investigation, Manhattan prosecutors last year charged the Trump Organization’s finance chief Allen Weisselberg and the company with tax fraud. Weisselberg and the company have pleaded not guilty.

In court on Thursday, Trumps’ lawyers accused James of trying to enforce subpoenas for testimony from Trump and his children with the intent to use what they say against them in the parallel criminal probe.

Trump’s lawyers had told Judge Arthur Engoron that having him sit for a civil deposition now, while his company is also the subject of a parallel criminal investigation, is an improper attempt to get around a state law barring prosecutors from calling someone to testify before a criminal. grand jury without giving them immunity.

“If she wants to sworn testimony from my client, he’s entitled to immunity. He gets immunity for what he says, or he says nothing, ”Trump’s criminal defense lawyer, Ronald Fischetti, said in the hearing, which was conducted by video conference.

“They’re cherry-picking,” Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba told Engoron of the New York state court in Manhattan. “It’s an improper run-around of the rules.”

Habba accused James of “selective prosecution and prosecutorial misconduct that this country has never seen,” citing statements reflecting the Democratic attorney general’s “vile disdain” for the former Republican president.

“If he wasn’t who he is, she wouldn’t be doing this,” Habba said. “This court can help stop this circus.”

Kevin Wallace, a lawyer from James’ office, rejected that characterization arguing that having parallel probes “isn’t all that extraordinary.”

“They haven’t shown anything here that says it’s unfair,” Wallace said.

The criminal inquiry into the Trump Organization is now led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. James joined that probe last May.

In a statement on Tuesday, Trump railed against what he called a “sham investigation of a great company that has done a spectacular job for New York and beyond.” Trump called it a racially motivated “continuation of a Witch Hunt the likes of which has never been seen in this Country before”; Both James and Bragg are Black.

Trump could invoke his Fifth Amendment constitutional right not to incriminate himself in a civil deposition, but if he does so, it could hurt any potential criminal defense in the separate criminal evidenceFischetti said.

Previously, Eric Trump and Weisselberg invoked their right not to speak hundreds of times when they were questioned by investigators in James civil investigation in 2020.

Justice Engoron has previously sided with James on other matters relating to the probe, including forcing Eric Trump to testify after his lawyers abruptly canceled a scheduled deposition.

Engoron’s ruling on Thursday is almost certain to be appealed but if upheld, would force the former president to provide testimony, or claim his right not to incriminate himself.