CNN reports, Trump and his children may be deposed by New York attorney general, judge rules:
Former President Donald Trump, as well as his children Ivanka and Donald Jr., must sit for depositions in the New York attorney general’s civil investigation of their business practices, a New York judge ruled Thursday.
New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron issued his ruling the same day that he held a contentious two-hour hearing over the matter. The Trumps were seeking to quash the subpoenas from Attorney General Letitia James, while she was asking the court to order them to comply.
On several occasions throughout the hearing, the judge expressed skepticism toward the Trumps’ arguments that sitting for testimony in the civil investigation would undermine their constitutional rights.
During Thursday’s hearing, Trump’s lawyers indicated they would appeal an unfavorable decision. [But of course.]
If they have nothing to hide, they would just testify. But, of course, we know they have something to hide. The previous New York AG dissolved the Trump Foundation and Trump University for “a shocking pattern of illegality.” Eric Trump, who has already testified in this investigation, Invoked the Fifth Amendment About 500 Times.
The New York attorney general is looking at whether Trump misled lenders, insurers or others in his and his business’ financial statements. Already, James has alleged numerous “misleading statements and omissions” in tax submissions and financial statements used to obtain loans.
James asked the court to compel compliance with her subpoenas, which also include a request for certain records that she said Trump hasn’t handed over.
“In the final analysis, a State Attorney General commences investigating a business entity, uncovers copious evidence of possible financial fraud, and wants to question, under oath, several of the entities’ principles, including its namesake,” Engoron wrote. “She has the clear right to do so.”
Fiery hearing
During Thursday’s hearing, Engoron asked why the Trumps couldn’t just invoke the Fifth Amendment’s protections against self-incrimination and refuse to answer specific questions.
“Can’t they refuse to answer? Isn’t that what Eric Trump did 500 times?” the judge said, referring to a deposition that Trump’s son already gave in the investigation.
In their efforts to quash the subpoenas, the Trumps’ lawyers argued that if James wants their testimony, she should bring them before a grand jury where they could be granted immunity. [As if!]
The lawyers pointed to a separate criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney that is underway, and they emphasized the coordination between that office and James’s office.
Ronald Fischetti, who is representing Trump in the district attorney’s criminal investigation, argued that if the former President was forced to invoke the Fifth Amendment, it would be on the front page of every newspaper and would taint the jury pool if a criminal case was brought against Trump.
Hey Genius: if Trump has done nothing wrong, he does not need to invoke the Fifth. You are essentially imputing criminality to your client. I’ll take that as an admission against interest.
The former President also has filed a request to freeze James’ investigation altogether, saying she’s engaged in a political and selective prosecution and is improperly biased against him.
The judge was skeptical of those arguments as well, pushing back on claims from Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba that the attorney general was discriminating against Trump on the basis of his political views.
Habba at one point said the attorney general’s office should be asked whether it intends to investigate Hillary Clinton for supposedly spying on Trump Tower — a reference to a recent legal filing in special counsel John Durham’s investigation that has been mischaracterized by conservative media.
The Judge should refer this lawyer to the bar for discipline.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Former U.S. Attorney Renato Mariotti explains at Politico, “How Donald Trump Played Himself”, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/21/how-donald-trump-played-himself-00010409
[J]udges will usually grant a “stay” that pauses the civil case if it looks like the criminal case is likely to result in an indictment of the defendant. Because no one but the prosecutors themselves know exactly what they’re up to, savvy defense attorneys usually make it seem like a criminal indictment is on the horizon. It might make a client’s situation seem more dire, but it’s textbook legal strategy in a situation like this.
It’s not as hard to do as you’d think, even in this case. After all, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, is under indictment. Trump’s legal team could have weaved together facts — some known by the public, but many not known, such as requests for interviews or subpoenas for documents — that suggested that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office was working towards a criminal indictment of Trump for the same subject matter under investigation by James.
But they didn’t do that. Maybe it was Trump’s ego or his insistence that his lawyers make the question of the deposition a political battle rather than a legal one. But while Trump’s attorneys argued that James was using the civil investigation to develop evidence that could be used against Trump in a criminal case, they downplayed his potential criminal liability. Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., said during the court hearing that he had no reason to believe that either of the Trump children are targets of the district attorney’s criminal investigation. Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, spent much of her time arguing that James was pursuing a “vendetta against Donald Trump and his family to take him down” for her own political gain.
That narrative might play well on Fox News or on Twitter, but it’s not surprising that this approach did not persuade a judge who undoubtedly has come across parallel criminal and civil investigations throughout his career. Trump’s lawyers might argue that James was doing something outside the box by moving forward with a civil investigation of potential fraud while a criminal probe was underway. But as long as there is a proper basis for the civil investigation, the judge’s role is to weigh the potential of impairing the defendant’s Fifth Amendment right against the harm caused by pausing the civil investigation.
By making it sound like Trump wasn’t going to face an indictment anytime soon, Trump’s team made this balancing act easy for the judge. If no indictment is forthcoming, the Fifth Amendment issue is more remote. A judge won’t impose significant delays in a civil case based on speculation about a criminal case. Otherwise, every civil case in this context would be delayed indefinitely.
“For [James] not to have investigated the original respondents, and not to have subpoenaed the new Trump respondents, would have been a blatant dereliction of duty (and would have broken an oft-repeated campaign promise),” Judge Arthur Engoron wrote.
“Indeed, the impetus for the investigation was not personal animus, not racial or ethnic or other discrimination, not campaign promises, but was sworn congressional testimony by former Trump associate Michael Cohen that respondents were ‘cooking the books.’”
So now Trump is between a rock and a hard place. If he sits for this deposition and answers questions under oath, his words can and will be used against him by the Manhattan DA and potentially other criminal prosecutors. But if he takes the Fifth, that can be used against him in the civil case because the judge can instruct the jury to draw an “adverse inference” against him.
Trump can appeal the judge’s ruling, but unless he changes his strategy, the appeal is unlikely to change the predicament he’s in. If Trump is willing to make it seem like he has significant criminal liability and that an indictment is likely, that could change things. But there is no reason to believe he will do that.
Huffington Post reports, “Trump Shoots Himself In Foot With Screed Over Accountants Who Ditched Him”, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-legal-jeopardy-mazars-reckless-screed_n_6211bddae4b08ed7cf70e46c
Trump boasted Tuesday in his lengthy statement on Mazars about his knowledge of the Trump Organization’s financial statements — and about padding the value of some of his business properties in 2014 with an arbitrary 30% Trump brand premium.
But that was just a day after his attorneys argued in court documents that Trump “denies knowledge” — and doesn’t even know enough “to form a belief” concerning just about every financial practice at his own company that may be scrutinized in James’ probe.
James quickly fired off a letter to the judge presiding over her investigation about Trump’s statement, noting that it flatly contradicted claims by his own attorneys.
“It is not unusual for parties to a legal proceeding to disagree about the facts,” James wrote to Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron. “But it is truly rare for a party to publicly disagree with statements submitted by his own attorneys in a signed pleading — let alone one day after the pleading was filed. That is what Mr. Trump has done here.”
Clearly, Trump knows “exactly what OAG is investigating,” she wrote, referencing the Office of the Attorney General.