NEW YORK — A real-estate services firm long used by Donald Trump’s company is refusing to comply with subpoenas for records about appraisals on three properties at the center of a state probe into the former president’s business, New York investigators told a judge.
Cushman & Wakefield, which severed ties with Trump last year, is wrongfully challenging demands for records issued in September and February, New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a Manhattan court filing Friday. The state is investigating Trump’s use of potentially misleading asset valuations for financial gain.
James asked a state-court judge to issue an order forcing Cushman to comply with the subpoenas. Her request comes a day after the attorney general asked the same judge to hold Trump in contempt of court and fine him $10,000 a day until he complies with a subpoena for his own records. A hearing on the contempt issue was set for April 25.
The subpoenas sought on Friday are part of James’s effort “to determine whether certain valuations prepared by Cushman were fraudulent or misleading, and whether Cushman itself has engaged in fraudulent or misleading practices in its issuance of appraisal,” according to the filing.
Messages left for Cushman & Wakefield and Trump weren’t immediately returned.
The properties at issue in the civil probe are the Trump Organization’s Seven Springs in Westchester County, near Manhattan, which it purchased in 1995; Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles; and 40 Wall Street in New York.
James has been investigating the Trump Organization since 2019, triggering a court battle over whether Trump and two of his adult children who were involved in the appraisals should be required to testify under oath. In January, James said the probe already had uncovered “significant” evidence that Trump may have used misleading asset valuations to get better terms for loans and insurance, and to secure bigger tax breaks for donated property.
Cushman worked with the Trump Organization for years, handling leasing at properties including 40 Wall Street. But the company cut ties with Trump in January 2021 after a mob of his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.
