Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

The Trumps Were Just Ordered To Testify in New York. That’s Really Good, Right? Let’s Unpack.

The Trumps Were Just Ordered To Testify in New York. That’s Really Good, Right? Let’s Unpack.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images // JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

New York State Attorney General Letitia James scored a victory in court yesterday after Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Donald Trump and his two offspring, Don Trump, Jr. and Ivanka Trump, will be required to sit for testimony as part of James’s civil investigation into fraudulently submitted valuations on Trump real estate properties. While the Trumps sought to portray the entire case as an illegitimate political “witch hunt,” the judge dismissed that argument and ordered the testimony to proceed within 21 days and for responsive documents to be produced within 14.

The Trumps tried to focus attention on campaign statements made by James in which she promised to go after Donald Trump, with the clear implication that she was abusing her powers in pursuing a partisan investigation. But these missives seemed directed more at the press and the former president’s base than at the court. (Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, apparently made “Twitter-style” arguments in court and was disrespectful to the judge, all while arguing that Trump was a “special class” of person who belongs to a protected class. The judge, confused, asked repeatedly which class that was.) In the end, the court paid little heed to the arguments around James’s alleged bias. “Attorney General James, just like respondent Donald J. Trump, was not deprived of her First Amendment rights to free speech when she was a politician running for a public office with investigatory powers,” the decision said.


The Trumps did raise a legal argument that will certainly be the subject of an appeal and which might arguably have some merit, or at least is not yet settled law in the state. By pursuing a civil investigation at the same time that she is openly cooperating with the Manhattan District Attorney on a pending criminal matter, James was seeking an end run around the protections that normally attach to witnesses asked to testify, the Trumps argued. Specifically, in a grand jury criminal setting in New York state, testifying witnesses are granted immunity from prosecution over the subject matter of their testimony. No such immunity exists for witnesses testifying in a civil investigation, however, and therefore the Trumps argued that AG James was getting the benefit of civil rules for what is essentially a criminal case with which her office is presumably sharing information.

The judge dismissed this argument as well, saying it “completely misses the mark.” He noted that the Trumps had not been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, so the hypothetical “end run” around grand jury immunity was a wholly academic one. He further ruled that James’s office had uncovered evidence that entitled her to question the Trump family. “In the final analysis,” Engoron wrote, “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’ principals, including its namesake. She has the clear right to do so.”

That evidence was part of the reason Trump’s longtime accountants at Mazars quit their client in an explosive letter delivered earlier this month and produced in support of James’s motion to compel the Trumps’ testimony. In that letter, the accounting firm walked back ten years of financial statements and cautioned the Trump Organization and its lenders not to rely upon them. When the Trumps sought to portray this damning development in a positive way because Mazars had not “as a whole” found material discrepancies between the information the Trump Organization provided and the actual value of Mr. Trump’s assets, Judge Engoron shot this down quickly, calling the Mazars letter a “red-flag warning” and observing that the argument the letter somehow exonerated the Trumps “is as audacious as it is preposterous.”

While the Trumps are certain to appeal the ruling, their chances of quashing the subpoenas outright are quite low. Come time to testify, it is probable that they will do as Eric Trump did in his deposition, namely to plead the Fifth Amendment some 500 times in response to all or nearly all the questions. But there is a twist here: Because this is a civil investigation for tax fraud and not a criminal matter, a jury that might be later seated in a civil case would be permitted to draw adverse inferences from a witness’s refusal to testify. That could lead to a disastrous verdict against the Trump Organization, which faces the prospect of having its entire charter to do business canceled by the state. Moreover, Donald Trump pleading the Fifth would make headlines all across the world and taint him politically, even if it could not be used adversely against him in a criminal matter.

The former president is not helping his own plight by releasing screeds and howlers at every opportunity. In his court filing on Monday, in an attempt to avoid testifying, Trump declared under oath that he “denies knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth” about his company's finances. Yet in a statement a day later, made after news got out of him being dumped by his accountants at Mazars, Trump spoke glowingly about his company’s “fantastic assets” declaring, “My company has among the best real estate and other assets anywhere in the world, has significant amounts of cash, and has relatively very little debt, which is totally current." He even attempted, no doubt for the benefit of his lenders who might now call in the loans over fraud, to demonstrate by clumsy calculation that the company had a net worth of some 5.7 billion dollars (likely untrue).

James’s office took note of this glaring discrepancy in its responsive pleadings. “It is not unusual for parties to a legal proceeding to disagree about the facts,” the AG’s office wrote. “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.”

For more political analysis, subscribe to the Status Kuo newsletter.

More from People/donald-trump

Taylro Lautner; Selena Gomez
Christopher Polk/Variety via Getty Images, Maya Dehlin Spach/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images

Taylor Lautner Urges Fans To Be 'Nicer' After Ex Selena Gomez Is Hit With Body-Shaming Comments

Actor Taylor Lautner defended his ex-girlfriend and Emilia Pérez star, Selena Gomez, after she was subjected to body shaming on social media after her SAG Awards appearance.

Lautner dated Gomez in 2009 at the height of his popularity, playing thearianthropic character Jacob Black in the first film from The Twilight Saga movies.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bill Burr; Ben Shapiro
Tomas Cuesta/Getty Images; Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Bill Burr Torches Ben Shapiro For Calling Him 'Woke' For Criticizing Health Insurance CEOs

Comedian and actor Bill Burr called out conservative pundit Ben Shapiro in a new interview with The New York Times for calling him "woke" over his comments about health insurance CEOs being "afraid."

Shapiro had lashed out at Burr over his December podcast rant in which he appeared sympathetic to Luigi Mangione, who was charged in December with second-degree murder, forgery, and three firearm-related offenses. The charges stem from the fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan.

Keep ReadingShow less
Jim Jordan
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Jim Jordan-Run GOP X Account Used Epstein Docs Release To 'Rickroll' MAGA Fans—It Did Not Go Well

The X account for the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee came under fire for posting a now-deleted tweet purporting to link to the "EPSTEIN FILES"—except it was a "Rickroll."

The account, which represents the Republican majority members of the committee and is run by committee chair Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, shared a post claiming that the “EPSTEIN FILES” had been released, including a shortened URL labeled “EpsteinFilesV2.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Jen Psaki, Steven Cheung
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Jen Psaki Shuts Down Trump Comms Director After He Mocks Her Personalized Stationery

Political analyst Jen Psaki, the former White House Press Secretary for Democratic President Joe Biden, fired back after being chastised on social media by White House Communications Director Steven Cheung for a "relic" she had left behind.

Cheung, who was Republican President Donald Trump's campaign spokesperson during the 2024 election, had accused Psaki of thinking she was "so important" after he discovered some personalized note cards she'd left behind at the White House.

Keep ReadingShow less
Couple holding hands on beach
Dominic Sansotta/Unsplash

People Reveal Whether They Actually Loved The First Person They Dated

Everyone has their own unique love journey until they meet their person and commit to one another.

While exes may have let us down, being with them has been a learning experience that makes you appreciate the person with whom you share a life in the present.

Keep ReadingShow less