A New York judge ruled on Wednesday that Donald Trump is no longer in contempt Non-delivery of documents Requested in a subpoena by the state attorney general.
The former president on April 25 Detecting contempt It came after he challenged a subpoena issued in December to obtain records relating to his personal finances and the financing of several properties. Trump claimed he had no material that would respond to the subpoena, leading to demands by Judge and New York Attorney General Letitia James that his attorneys provide detailed explanations of how their search was conducted.
“Although we are pleased that the court lifted the contempt order, we maintain that it was completely unwarranted and improper in the first place,” Trump’s attorney, Alina Heba, said in a text message. “We will go ahead with our plea to secure justice for our clients.”
Trump was A fine of $10,000 a day Until May 6, when his lawyers first gave their explanations for their attempts to search for the subpoenaed documents. In the weeks that followed, the judge and the attorney general demanded affidavits from more than two dozen Trump Organization employees and lawyers in an effort to find out how Donald Trump’s eponymous company apparently kept virtually no records about the namesake’s personal finances.
Nearly all employees who filed affidavits described a company that had few concrete policies on destroying and retaining documents related to Trump’s personal finances, leaving such decisions to individuals, or in some cases to their department heads.
These statements largely mirrored what Trump said in an affidavit, that “my usual practice is to delegate responsibilities for handling and retaining documents to my executive assistants.”
The executive assistants who filed the written representations said they did not follow any specific policies. Former long-time assistant, Rona Graff, He said in his testimony May 31 She often left such decisions to other people. In affidavits filed on June 17, the heads of several administrations said that while they had internal policies for retaining documents, they did not have any policies for documents related to Trump himself.
Trump’s attorney, Alina Heba, noted in a June 8 letter to the court that a “significant number” of documents appear Trump’s handwritten notes It was delivered by the Trump Organization. It was a love letter attached to the eight exhibits that included several photos of golf legend Gary Player, on which Trump had written the word “awesome,” as well as several legal and design documents in which he had written the word “Okay.” There was also a note from his daughter on a planning document relating to Trump’s property in Doral, Florida.
In a June 21 filing, James’s office lawyer said he supported the lifting of the contempt result, not because he was pleased with the clarifications he had received, but because “it is not clear what, if any, other than that, [Trump] He can order his lawyer to do so.”
The lawyer, Andrew Amer, indicated that Trump will be asked about the company’s records while being sworn in by court order Deposit scheduled in mid-July. Trump and two of his sons, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, recently lost two appeals seeking to block the affidavits.
We have all expectations [Trump] He will be examined under oath next month and will inform the court immediately if new information is obtained about the defendant’s documents from that testimony, Amer wrote, adding that he remains concerned about the “obvious absence in the production of documents one would expect to see.” Trump regarding his financial statements.
James’ office since 2019 has conducted large-scale civil fraud investigations against Trump and his company, and said his investigation had collected evidence “showing that Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization used fraudulent and misleading financial statements to gain economic benefit.”
Amer and his colleagues said in multiple hearings recently that the investigation is coming to an end.
