Former U.S. President Donald Trump left Manhattan’s Trump Tower on Wednesday (August 10) morning, headed downtown to a deposition with New York attorney general Letitia James.
Trump is expected to testify in a civil investigation by the New York attorney general into his family’s business practices, as he deals with a flurry of other legal woes.
James is conducting a probe into whether the Trump Organization inflated real estate values. Trump and two of his adult children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, fought for months to avoid testifying.
Late Tuesday (August 9), Trump said in a posting on his app Truth Social that he would see the New York attorney general on Wednesday. A source also told Reuters that Trump is scheduled to testify in the probe on Wednesday. Trump’s children were already deposed, the source said.
The deposition will not be public.
A spokeswoman for James has declined to comment, and a lawyer for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.
James has said her investigation uncovered significant evidence that the Trump Organization, which manages hotels, golf courses and other real estate, overstated asset values to obtain favorable loans and understated the values to get tax breaks.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the New York investigation politically motivated. James is a Democrat.
It is unclear how much Trump will say during the long-anticipated deposition. He may decline to answer questions on the grounds that he might incriminate himself, according to a person familiar with the matter.
But the testimony could help determine where the probe goes. No case has been filed.
Separately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) searched Trump’s Florida estate on Monday (August 8), an escalation of the federal investigation into whether the former president illegally removed records from the White House as he was leaving office in January 2021.
(Reuters)
