Judge Rules Trump, Two Eldest Children Must Testify In New York Case

By Staff, Agencies

Former US president Donald Trump and two of his children have been ordered by a New York judge to appear for a deposition within the next three weeks, as part of the billowing investigation over fraud in the valuation of assets belonging to his family business.

The ruling by Judge Arthur Engoron to force Trump and his two eldest children – Donald Jr and Ivanka – to comply with subpoenas amounts to a sharp escalation of the legal perils that are rapidly tightening around the former president.

The family has been striving to fend off demands for documents, information and testimony from the New York state attorney general, Letitia James. She is investigating whether the Trump Organization used “fraudulent or misleading” valuations of its assets to attract loans and reduce its tax burden.

Following a two-hour hearing on Thursday, Engoron delivered a blunt rebuttal to arguments put forward by Trump lawyers that the former president should not be subjected to questioning in the civil case because the information could be used against him in criminal proceedings that are running in parallel. The judge went so far as to say that had James not subpoenaed them, it would have been “a blatant dereliction of duty.”

Under the judge’s ruling, Trump must now testify within 21 days and hand over “documents and information” within 14 days. The development is the second severe blow for the former president in the space of a week.

On Monday, it was revealed that the longtime accounting firm for the Trump Organization, Mazars USA, had broken off ties with the family business, saying that it could no longer stand by 10 years of annual financial statements that it had prepared for the group.

The accountants said that they had reviewed the “totality of the circumstances” and reached the conclusion that “we are not able to provide any new work product” to the Trumps.

Now Trump and his two children must face questioning by James, New York state’s top prosecutor who has relentlessly pursued alleged irregularities in the family’s finances. The event is likely to present the former president with a legal and political conundrum.

Should he answer James’s piercing questions, he risks potentially implicating himself in a criminal investigation into Trump accounts that is being conducted by James in tandem with the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. If he pleads the Fifth Amendment and remains silent that could also be difficult for him.