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Trump invokes 5th Amendment, refuses to depose before AG in NY
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IANS | 11 Aug, 2022
Former US President Donald Trump kept his date with New York Attorney
General in Manhattan but declined to answer questions from the latters
office, a calculated and yet surprising gamble in a high-stakes legal
interview that will likely determine the course of a civil investigation
into his companys business practices of whether he has misused tax
breaks.
Shortly after questioning began on
Wednesday morning, Trump's office released a statement saying he would
invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, explaining
that he "declined to answer the questions under the rights and
privileges afforded to every citizen under the US Constitution".
Two
informed sources confirmed that he was refusing to answer questions,
citing the Fifth Amendment, The New York Times reported.
Since
March 2019, Attorney General Letitia James's office has investigated
whether rump and his company improperly inflated the value of his
hotels, golf clubs and other assets.
Trump has long dismissed the inquiry from James as a partisan "witch hunt".
In
his statement on Wednesday, he cast it as part of a grander conspiracy
against him, linking it to the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, his home and
private club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday.
"I once asked,
�If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?'" he said
in the statement. "Now I know the answer to that question."
Trump said that he was being targeted by lawyers, prosecutors and the news media, and that left him with "no choice".
But
there were other reasons Trump may have decided not to answer
questions. While James's inquiry is civil, and she cannot file criminal
charges against the former President, the Manhattan District Attorney's
office has been conducting a parallel criminal investigation into
whether Trump fraudulently inflated valuations of his properties.
Any
misstep from the former President in his deposition could have breathed
new life into that inquiry, The New York Times said.
Trump
priorly was not expected to invoke his constitutional right against
self-incrimination. He has long considered himself his best spokesman,
and those who had questioned him in the past, as well as some of his own
advisers, believed he was unlikely to stay quiet. His decision could
have a significant impact on any trial if James's investigation leads to
a lawsuit. Jurors in civil matters can draw a negative inference when a
defendant invokes his or her Fifth Amendment privilege, unlike in
criminal cases, where exercising the right against self-incrimination
cannot be held against the defendant.
Staying silent could also
hurt Trump politically at a time when he is hinting that he will join
the 2024 presidential race; it could raise questions about what he might
be trying to hide. In the past, Trump has ridiculed witnesses for
invoking their Fifth Amendment rights, once remarking at a rally that,
"you see the mob takes the Fifth", and, "if you're innocent, why are you
taking the Fifth Amendment?"
The District Attorney, Alvin L.
Bragg, had developed concerns about proving a case against Trump, but he
has said that he is monitoring James's investigation and planned to
scrutinize Trump's responses on Wednesday. The former President's
decision not to answer those questions may forestall new avenues in that
investigation.
Trump is also contending with a litany of other
inquiries. Along with the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, federal prosecutors
are questioning witnesses about his involvement in efforts to reverse
his election loss; a House select committee held a series of hearings
tying him more closely to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol; and
a District Attorney in Georgia is investigating potential election
interference on the part of Mr. Trump and his allies.
James's
inquiry could wrap up sooner than those investigations. Rather than file
a lawsuit that would take years to resolve, she could first pursue
settlement negotiations with the former President's lawyers to obtain a
swiffer financial payout. But if she ultimately sues Trump, and if James
prevails at trial, a judge could impose steep financial penalties on
Trump and restrict his business operations in New York.
In
seeking to fend off a lawsuit from James, The New York Times said that
Trump's lawyers are likely to argue that valuing real estate is a
subjective process, and that his company simply estimated the value of
his properties, without intending to artificially inflate them.
While
James has contended in court papers that the Trump Organization
provided bogus valuations to banks to secure favourable loans, the
former President's lawyers might argue that those were sophisticated
financial institutions that turned a hefty profit from their dealings
with Trump.
The depositions represent the culmination of months
of legal wrangling. In January, Trump asked a judge in New York to
strike down a subpoena from James seeking his testimony and personal
documents. The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, sided with James and ordered
the Trumps to testify, a ruling that an appellate court upheld.
And
at James's request, Justice Engoron held Trump in contempt of court,
finding that he had failed to comply with the terms of the AG's subpoena
seeking his documents. It was an embarrassing two-week episode that
compelled Trump to pay a $110,000 penalty.
At an April court
hearing for the contempt order, one of James's lawyers, Kevin Wallace,
indicated that the investigation was nearing its conclusion. James's
office, he said, would need to bring an "enforcement action" in the
"near future".
The lawsuit, or a settlement agreement, would be
likely to accuse Trump and his company of fraudulently inflating the
value of his golf clubs, hotels and other properties on his annual
financial statements. Trump's company provided the statements to banks
in hopes of obtaining loans.
James revealed in a court filing
this year that Trump's long-time accounting firm, which compiled these
statements, had cut ties with him. The firm, Mazars, essentially
retracted nearly a decade's worth of Trump's financial statements, The
New York Times said.
Trump's deposition marks the final stage of
the AG's three-year civil inquiry, teeing up one of the most
consequential decisions of her tenure: whether to sue Trump and his
company.
James, a Democrat running for re-election in November,
has assumed the role of Trump's chief antagonist in New York. And in
recent months, she has adopted an unusually aggressive legal
strategy,including persuading a judge to hold the former President in
contempt of court, as she battled to obtain his documents and testimony.
But Trump invoked his constitutional right against
self-incrimination during the deposition, declining to answer questions.
He has long dismissed the inquiry from James as a partisan "witch
hunt", and in a statement released as questioning began, he painted
James as an overly zealous and politically motivated prosecutor.
The
argument that James's investigation was politically motivated had not
been convincing to judges: Trump's lawyers attempted to leverage it
while trying to avoid the questioning, and were unsuccessful.
James,
a former New York City councilwoman from Brooklyn, who rose to become
the city's public advocate, was elected attorney general in 2018,
becoming the first Black woman to hold statewide office. The victory
placed her at the forefront of the legal fight against Trump's policies
by states with Democratic leadership. She succeeded Barbara D.
Underwood, who already had several cases pending against Trump,
including an investigation into his charity and lawsuits to stop
immigrant families from being separated at the border.
James vowed to continue the office's scrutiny of the president.
"He
should know that we here in New York, and I, in particular, we are not
scared of you," she said in her victory speech. "And as the next
attorney general of his home state, I will be shining a bright light
into every dark corner of his real estate dealings, and every dealing,
demanding truthfulness at every turn."
She kept her word,
becoming a thorn in Trump's side. In March 2019, she started a civil
investigation that focused on whether Trump had systematically
mis-stated the value of his assets to gain financial advantage with
lenders and tax authorities. In January this year, she accused the Trump
Organization of repeatedly misrepresenting the value of its assets to
bolster its bottom line, saying that the company had engaged in
"fraudulent or misleading" practices. That filing came in response to
Trump's effort to block James from questioning him and two of his adult
children under oath.
Three months later, she filed a motion to
hold Trump in contempt for failing to turn over documents. The filing
cited a response from Trump's legal team argued that the AG's requests
were "grossly overbroad, unintelligible, unduly burdensome" and did not
"adequately" describe the requested materials. A judge ruled in James's
favour and imposed a $110,000 penalty.
James won a big victory
when a judge ordered Trump to face questioning about his net worth and
pattern of alleged financial embellishment.
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