Donald Trump has been found in contempt of court for failing to turn over documents to the New York attorney-general as she probes financial dealings by the former president and his business.
Trump was ordered on Monday by Judge Arthur Engoron to pay $10,000 a day until he complies with a previous ruling ordering him to hand over documents requested by Letitia James, New York attorney-general.
“Today, justice prevailed,” James said in a statement. “For years, Donald Trump has tried to evade the law and stop our lawful investigation into him and his company’s financial dealings. Today’s ruling makes clear: No one is above the law.”
The requests are part of a civil investigation by James’s office into financial dealings of the former president and the Trump Organization.
In January, James said her office had found “significant evidence” that Trump and the Trump Organization fraudulently inflated the value of their assets to banks, insurers and financial institutions in order to secure financing.
She issued subpoenas to Trump as well as two of his adult children, Donald Jr and Ivanka. The Trumps tried, unsuccessfully, to quash the subpoenas, arguing they were being unfairly targeted and that the attorney-general’s subpoena was a ploy to extract information that could later be used against the family in the parallel criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney. Engoron overruled those objections and ordered them to comply.
After Trump failed to hand over the requested documents, James asked the court to hold him in contempt. “The Trumps must comply with our lawful subpoenas for documents and testimony because no one in this country can pick and choose if and how the law applies to them,” she said in a statement at the time.
The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The former president has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and described the investigation as a partisan political “witch-hunt” led by Democrats, as he considers another potential run for the presidency in 2024.
Manhattan prosecutors previously charged Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer, with tax fraud. But they have struggled to persuade Weisselberg, one of the family’s most loyal lieutenants, to turn against them and co-operate with the probe. He has pleaded not guilty.
Two senior prosecutors leading the criminal probe resigned in February after complaining that the new Manhattan district attorney did not support their push for criminal charges. That has left the former president to contend with James’ civil probe.
It has come to focus on whether the Trump Organization inflated the value of certain real estate assets in order to secure financing — at a time when many lenders had avoided them — while minimising them for tax and insurance purposes.
James commenced her investigation in 2019 after Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, told Congress the Trump Organization routinely misrepresented the value of its assets to banks, insurers and other financial institutions.
“It was my experience that Mr Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” Cohen told a congressional committee at the time.
Credit: Source link
