Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump and three of his children, calling their actions a "staggering" deception.
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The former president, who is also charged with a separate 34-count criminal indictment that was revealed last week, was being cross-examined on Thursday in a civil fraud action launched by New York Attorney General Letitia James. This is just the most recent in a string of legal troubles that the former president is involved in.
Ms. James accuses Mr. Trump, his family business, and three of his children of a "staggering" fraud for vastly overvaluing the assets of the former president in her civil lawsuit, which was filed in September and is scheduled to go to trial later this year.
The complaint wants a judge to essentially shut down Mr. Trump's business in the state if he is found guilty at trial in exchange for the $250 million it claims they gained from those false assertions presented in Mr. Trump's annual financial statements.
As part of the case's discovery phase and in anticipation of the trial, Ms. James' office is questioning Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump was deposed in the summer of 2022, just before the attorney general filed her case, and this is the second time that Ms. James' attorneys have confronted him under oath. Mr. Trump attacked Ms. James, a Democrat, throughout that deposition, saying that she was driven by politics. He then repeatedly used his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination over the course of four hours.
The specifics of his testimony won't be known straight away since depositions are done in private, but according to sources familiar with his plans, Mr. Trump was not going to invoke his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
One of his attorneys, Alina Habba, strongly suggested that he will answer questions in a statement on Thursday.
The statement read, "President Trump is not only willing but eager to testify before the attorney general today." He is steadfast in his belief that he has nothing to hide and is eager to inform the attorney general of the enormous success of his multibillion-dollar business.
Because he was in the White House or on the campaign trail for several years and was no longer in charge of his business, Mr. Trump may have tried to avoid answering Ms. James's inquiries directly by responding in a vague manner. He might claim, for instance, that he cannot remember or was not present at a specific incident. He might also assert that he gave his staff the responsibility of valuing his assets.
In spite of his repeated denials of wrongdoing, Mr. Trump has charged Ms. James with leading what he has called "a witch hunt." Mr. Trump's claims that Ms. James's case is politically motivated have been dismissed by two judges.
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Mr. Trump's choice to respond to inquiries might be the result of a legal assessment of the distinction between criminal prosecutions and civil proceedings, such as the one that might result from Ms. James's lawsuit.
Jurors in civil trials are allowed to consider a defendant's failure to answer questions and draw the conclusion that the defendant had anything to hide, although they are not allowed to do so in criminal trials. Mr. Trump's chances of succeeding at trial may be severely harmed if he refused to respond to questions.
But Mr. Trump might face more legal trouble if he responds to inquiries on Thursday. He would essentially give up his right to object to further inquiries on a subject once he had responded. Furthermore, it may be simpler to flat-out refuse to respond to a substantive topic than to address some of them while avoiding others.
The biggest danger for Mr. Trump would be if he deviated from the plan. Although he has been deposed before, there is a potential that he would react rashly under tough interrogation, as he has in the past, and openly challenge his interviewers. (He once remarked that a lawyer's inquiries were "very stupid.")
Mr. Trump's testimony may be used against him in court by Ms. James, and she might eventually give criminal investigators who are also looking into his access to his words.
The Manhattan district attorney's office unveiled the 34-count indictment against him last week, accusing him of improperly concealing a hush-money payment made to a porn star by his longtime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The conduct at the center of Ms. James's civil complaint is also being looked into by the same office, which is run by district attorney Alvin L. Bragg. The district attorney's office was moving towards charging Mr. Trump with falsely misrepresenting the worth of his assets at the beginning of last year, but Mr. Bragg became uncertain about how to prove the case.
Mr. Bragg has however stated that the probe is ongoing.
Additionally, he might not be the final prosecutor to charge Mr. Trump. The Fulton County District Attorney in Georgia, Fani T. Willis, is looking into his attempts to sway Georgia's 2020 election results. Additionally, a special counsel appointed by the federal government is investigating his attempts to get the election results overturned as well as how he handled confidential information in Washington.
In her case, Ms. James said that Mr. Trump had broken both state and "possibly" federal laws by lying to lenders and insurers about the worth of his properties. It described how Mr. Trump inflates the value of almost all of his most well-known buildings, such as Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street in Manhattan, and Mar-a-Lago in Florida, in order to obtain better terms from lenders and insurers.
Along with Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump, the defendant list also included Mr. Trump's business, the Trump Organisation. The Trumps were barred from running their family business and for five years from purchasing property in New York by Ms. James, who brought the action.
And in response to Ms. James's request, the case's judge, Arthur F. Engoron, named former federal judge Barbara S. Jones as an impartial monitor to watch over how the Trump Organisation uses its annual financial statements.
Justice Engoron rejected Mr. Trump's request to have the case dismissed in January. He has set the trial for the first part of October.
The former president arrived at the attorney general's office just before 10 a.m. after spending the night at his Manhattan penthouse in Trump Tower. Mr. Trump's motorcade entered the parking basement beneath the office building in Lower Manhattan as a throng yelled, "New York hates you."
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Steel barriers encircled the massive plaza and skyscraper early on Thursday, as well as the nearby New York Federal Reserve building. Numerous photographers, reporters, and television crews gathered in a tiny sculpture park that was separated by additional barriers while private security guards, police officers, and Secret Service officials patrolled the nearby streets.
