Trump answers questions for 7 hours in NY fraud lawsuit

Donald Trump to Return to NYC To Face Questioning Over Fraud Lawsuit
Martin Walsh, April 11, 2023

Former President Donald Trump is headed back to New York City, but for a different case against him.

Trump will return to New York City this week to face questioning regarding Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud lawsuit against him and the Trump Organization. Reports suggest the 45th president will be in NYC on Thursday to face questions in James’ office in Manhattan.

“James’ investigation is separate from the 34 counts of felony fraud that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg leveled against Trump last week. Thursday will be the second time the former president has sat down for questioning from James. He also appeared for a deposition with her office in the weeks leading up to her lawsuit late last year. In that instance, he refused to answer any questions, repeatedly invoking his Fifth Amendment rights,” Fox News reported.

“James, a Democrat, has been investigating Trump since she took office in January 2019. She brought a lawsuit against Trump in September alleging he and his company misled banks and others about the value of his assets. James’ claimed that Trump and his children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, as well as his associates and businesses, allegedly committed ‘numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation’ regarding financial statements,” the outlet added.

James alleges that Trump “inflated his net worth by billions of dollars” and claims his children helped him in doing so.

When Trump was president, James, a Democrat, sued his administration dozens of times over policies on education, immigration, healthcare, the environment, and other issues.





The latest developments come after Trump appeared in Manhattan last week for his arraignment in the case brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 charges regarding allegations that he falsified business records related to adult film star Stormy Daniels’ hush-money case.

Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in a case involving his purported role in hush money payments to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, allegedly to keep Daniels quiet about an affair the two of them had in 2006.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul took Bragg to task after Trump was indicted, saying Bragg could be forced out of office and into court himself.

“Wonder if DA Bragg remembers Durham DA Mike Nifong who withheld exculpatory DNA tests on the Duke lacrosse players. He was subsequently forced out of office, disbarred, and convicted of contempt of court,” Paul said, referring to Nifong, the district attorney in the 2006 case accusing Duke University lacrosse players of rape. The three players were exonerated and Nifong even spent one day in jail.

“A Trump indictment would be a disgusting abuse of power. The DA should be put in jail,” Paul said in a separate statement just before news late last week about the indictment.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared that Congress will take action after Trump appeared in Manhattan on Tuesday for his arraignment in the case brought against him by Bragg.

John Bolton — who served as a national security adviser in the Trump administration and has since come out against Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign — appeared on CNN and blasted the charges filed against his ex-boss, former President Trump, saying the indictment was “even weaker than I feared it would be.”

“Speaking as someone who very strongly does not want Donald Trump to get the Republican presidential nomination, I’m extraordinarily distressed by this document,” Bolton said on CNN. “I think this is even weaker than I feared it would be.”

Notorious anti-Trump GOP Sen. Mitt Romney issued a statement saying: “I believe President Trump’s character and conduct make him unfit for office. Even so, I believe the New York prosecutor has stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda. No one is above the law, not even former presidents, but everyone is entitled to equal treatment under the law. The prosecutor’s overreach sets a dangerous precedent for criminalizing political opponents and damages the public’s faith in our justice system.”

Trump answers questions for 7 hours in NY fraud lawsuit
MICHAEL R. SISAK | AP Finance
Wed, April 12, 2023 at 11:07 PM MDT

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump answered questions for nearly seven hours Thursday during his second deposition in a legal battle with New York's attorney general over his company's business practices, reversing an earlier decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and remain silent.

The Republican met all day with lawyers for Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump last year. Her lawsuit claims Trump and his family misled banks and business associates by giving them false information about his net worth and the value of assets such as hotels and golf courses.

Shortly after Trump entered the Manhattan skyscraper that houses James' offices, his attorney, Alina Habba, said he was “not only willing but also eager to testify.”

“He remains resolute in his stance that he has nothing to conceal, and he looks forward to educating the Attorney General about the immense success of his multi-billion dollar company," Habba said in a statement.

The lawsuit is unrelated to the felony criminal charges filed against Trump by the Manhattan district attorney, which led last week to his historic arraignment, the first for a former president.

In a social media post Thursday morning, Trump called the suit “ridiculous, just like all of the other Election Interference cases being brought against me."

He raised a fist as he left his apartment at Trump Tower in the morning, arriving by motorcade at the attorney general's office around 9:40. The two sides took a break for lunch. Trump departed in the motorcade just before 6:15 p.m. and did not stop to speak to reporters.

James declined to answer a question about the deposition at a news conference on an unrelated matter Wednesday.

Trump previously met with James' lawyers Aug. 10, but refused to answer all but a few procedural questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights more than 400 times. At the time, James had not yet brought her lawsuit and it was unclear whether questions about the way Trump valued his company would become the basis of a criminal case.

“Anyone in my position not taking the Fifth Amendment would be a fool, an absolute fool,” he said in that deposition, which was recorded on video and later released publicly. Trump predicted a “renegade” prosecutor would try to make a criminal case out of his answers, if he gave them.

“One statement or answer that is ever so slightly off, just ever so slightly, by accident, by mistake, such as it was a sunny, beautiful day, when actually it was slightly overcast, would be met by law enforcement at a level seldom seen in this country, because I’ve experienced it,” he said.

Circumstances since then have changed. The criminal charges brought by the Manhattan district attorney focused on how the company accounted internally for payments to a lawyer, Michael Cohen, for his work paying off people not to go public with stories about extramarital sexual encounters Trump said never happened.

The lawsuit James brought is scheduled to go to trial in October. Video recordings of Trump's depositions could potentially be played at the trial, if the lawsuit is not settled.

Thursday's deposition was conducted in private.

Hopefully he bills by the hour