New York AG To Depose Donald Trump In Fraud Investigation

New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking a deposition from former president Donald Trump early next year as part of her investigation into potential fraud inside the Trump Organization. New York attorney general seeks Trump’s deposition as part of civil fraud investigation:

James has requested to take his testimony on Jan. 7 at her New York office as part of a civil investigation into whether Trump’s company committed financial fraud in the valuations of properties to different entities, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is ongoing.

One of the people familiar with the investigation said James is examining whether widespread fraud “permeated the Trump Organization.”

Without any doubt, as the New York Times reported in 2018, based upon records provided by Mary Trump. Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father:

President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.

Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.

James opened the probe in 2019 after Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, “testified before Congress that Trump’s annual financial statements inflated the values of Trump’s assets to obtain favorable terms for loans and insurance coverage, while also deflating the value of other assets to reduce real estate taxes,” her office said in a statement. New York attorney general investigating whether Trump Organization ‘improperly’ inflated value of assets.

2018: Federal court approves $25 million Trump University settlement: A federal court approved a $25 million settlement on Tuesday with students who said they were duped by Donald Trump and his now-defunct Trump University, which promised to teach them the “secrets of success” in the real estate industry.

2018: Trump Foundation Will Dissolve, Accused of ‘Shocking Pattern of Illegality’: The Donald J. Trump Foundation agreed to dissolve on Tuesday and give away all its remaining assets under court supervision as part of an ongoing investigation and lawsuit by the New York attorney general. The foundation was accused by then-attorney general, Barbara Underwood, of “functioning as little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,” and of engaging in “a shocking pattern of illegality” that included unlawfully coordinating with Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

2021: Trump Organization, CFO indicted on tax fraud charges: Donald Trump’s company and its longtime Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg, were charged Thursday in what prosecutors called a “sweeping and audacious” tax fraud scheme in which the executive collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation, including apartment rent, car payments and school tuition. Trump himself was not charged with any wrongdoing, but prosecutors noted he signed some of the checks at the center of the case. And one top prosecutor said the 15-year scheme was “orchestrated by the most senior executives” at the Trump Organization.

2021: Manhattan’s district attorney hired a top prosecutor who pursued mafia bosses to investigate Trump: Manhattan’s district attorney has hired a top prosecutor, Mark Pomerantz, who has a long career as a federal prosecutor and trial attorney, who specializes in white-collar and organized crime to join its investigation into Donald Trump and his businesses. Pomerantz has joined the team assembled by District Attorney Cyrus Vance to investigate whether the Trump Organization committed insurance and tax fraud, and falsified records.

Place your bets. Leticia James already has the goods on Trump. This deposition is just to allow him to commit perjury under oath, and dig his hole even deeper.

Ronald Fischetti, an attorney who has been representing Trump in investigations into his New York financial practices, said Trump would fight the request in court.

“What she has been doing, Letitia James, is working with the district attorney’s office, working hand-in-hand with Vance,” he said, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. (D), who has an ongoing criminal probe of the company. “This is an opportunity for them to get Donald Trump’s testimony under oath and then turn it over to the district attorney’s office.”

Wow, you get paid big bucks for this? Boy are you in for a surprise, because Donald Trump stiffs his lawyers.

Fabien Levy, a spokesman for James, declined to comment. Danny Frost, a spokesman for Vance’s office, said the deposition demand is not part of the criminal investigation.
The deposition marks an escalation in the probe of the former president’s company and a critical moment for James (D). While the attorney general had declared a run for governor, she said on Thursday that she’s suspending her campaign.

Both the attorney general and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office are scrutinizing whether Trump’s company broke the law by providing low values to property tax officers, while using high ones to garner tax breaks or impress lenders, as The Washington Post previously reported.

James has said she is considering filing a lawsuit over the matter, and Manhattan prosecutors have convened a new grand jury to consider potential criminal charges related to the company’s financial practices, according to the people familiar with the investigations.

Trump has not [yet] been personally accused of wrongdoing. He has previously attacked James and her probe into his businesses as a “witch hunt” – the only words this infantile criminal knows when he is caught committing crimes. It is so tiresome.

[If] Trump refuses to appear for the deposition, James and her office could take him to court and try to force him to comply.

In a New York Minute.

Last year, James’s investigators subpoenaed the former president’s son Eric Trump — a longtime executive at the Trump Organization — seeking to depose him as part of the same investigation. Eric Trump initially refused to comply, with his lawyers citing “those rights afforded to every individual under the Constitution,” according to a legal filing from James’s office.

He later agreed to comply and was questioned in October 2020.