MANHATTAN (CN) — Former Donald Trump reached a deal with New York investigators on Wednesday to sit for questioning in July as part of the state’s probe into his eponymous company.
The 4-page joint stipulation entered this afternoon in Manhattan Supreme Court formally delays what had been a deadline for set for this week for the state to obtain the testimonies of Trump; his eldest daughter, Ivanka, and his eldest son, Don Jr. To allow them time to prepare, the depositions are now set to begin July 15.
Judge Arthur Engoron signed off on the agreement, which preserves the Trumps' ability to appeal to New York’s highest court, called the Court of Appeals, for a pass on the deposition all together.
New York Attorney General Letitia James started investigating the Trump Organization and its officials in 2019 after Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer to the then-president, told Congress that Trump had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits. James’ office also has been involved in a parallel, but separate, investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
While Trump has often decried the investigation as part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him, a New York appeals court unanimously ruled last month that the Trumps would have to comply with subpoenas for their deposition.
Judge Engoron had previously determined that it would be “a blatant dereliction of duty” for New York’s top prosecutor if she were to ignore Donald Trump’s business dealings.
In April, Judge Engoron found Trump in contempt and to pay $10,000 per day for failing to comply with the New York attorney general’s records demands in connection with the state investigation.
Trump appealed Judge Engoron’s order had to pay $110,000 in accumulated contempt fines when he lost.
During a remote status conference on Wednesday afternoon, Trump’s personal attorney Alina Habba asked Judge Engoron to discharge to the contempt order against Trump, repeatedly referring to it as “a gun to your head."
Attorney Andrew Amer with the New York Attorney General’s Office said on Wednesday that Trump has not yet met the conditions to lift his civil contempt order, and state investigators are seeking affidavits attesting to document retention and destruction policies and practices for each of the Trump Organization's departments with regard to documents containing Donald Trump’s handwritten comments and instructions.
According to a court filing earlier this week, deposition testimony given by Trump’s former executive assistant Rhona Graff on May 31, 2022, “cast doubt on the completeness of Mr. Trump’s affidavit.”
Because Trump’s former executive assistant testified that “each department handled documents in their own way,” state investigators are now seeking affidavits from individual Trump Organization departments — including legal, accounting, hotels and golf – to provide relevant retention and destruction policies and practices for Trump’s documents.
“Based on Ms. Graff’s testimony, affidavits from just Mr. Trump’s executive assistants are insufficient to provide OAG with the relevant retention and destruction policies and practices for Mr. Trump’s documents required under Jackson because it omits the retention and destruction policies and practices followed by the individual departments that would receive potentially relevant documents from him,” the letter states.
“This really shouldn’t be a wild goose chase,” Amer said during Wednesday’s remote conference.
In a reply letter, Habba called the investigators request “overreaching” and “appears to be little more than a means of further prolonging this dispute, despite the significant, good-faith efforts of Respondent to comply with the Court’s various orders and the Stipulation.”
“The document retention policies of separate, unrelated departments of the Trump Organization policies simply have no bearing on the individual document retention policy of Respondent,” Habba wrote.
“They want to investigate back to when he was born, effectively,” Habba said during Wednesday’s conference about the reach of the attorney general’s investigation. “They will never say it will be enough, because it will never be enough,” she said later during the conference.
Judge Engoron did not immediately issue a ruling on purging the contempt charge or ordering affidavits concerning the document retention and destruction policies and practices of individual Trump Organization departments.
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