After New York Attorney General Letitia James called on the state Supreme Court to hold Donald Trump in contempt for failing to comply with subpoena orders as part of her investigation into his business dealings, the former president claims that such probes are an “absolute violation” of his civil rights.
“As President I had two jobs – to run our Country well, and to survive,” he said in a statement through his Save America political action committee.
“I’ve been investigated by the Democrats more than Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and Al Capone, combined,” he said, claiming that he has been “innocent” in all cases.
“After having survived so many investigations, numerous people have said to me, ‘You must be the cleanest person alive. Nobody else could have survived this.’ But how do I get my reputation back as this unfair persecution endlessly continues?” he said.
He claimed Ms James is “no longer working as Attorney General, she is an operative for the Democrat Party in a political prosecution” and an “embarrassment to our legal system.”
In February, New York Judge Arthur Engoron rejected the former president’s attempt to evade the subpoena, and Mr Trump faced a 31 March deadline to produce documents as part of a civil probe into his financial dealings – a date to which all parties agreed.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump and his children have sought to quash subpoenas for their sworn testimony, accusing the attorney general of launching a political witch hunt, and have sued her office in federal court in an effort to end the investigation or recuse herself from it.
On 7 April, she filed a motion asking the state Supreme Court to hold the former president in contempt for failing to turn over evidence and proposed $10,000 daily fines for every day he has refused to comply with a court order.
“The judge’s order was crystal clear: Donald J Trump must comply with our subpoena and turn over relevant documents to my office,” she said in a statement. “Instead of obeying a court order, Mr Trump is trying to evade it. We are seeking the court’s immediate intervention because no one is above the law.”
Her office has pursued a wide-ranging civil probe into the Trump family and its New York-based Trump Organization, which she has accused of “fraudulent or misleading” practices, including repeatedly misrepresenting the value of assets, “to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage, and tax deductions.”
No charges have yet been filed, but filings from her office mark the most detailed account yet following long-running allegations involving the company and Mr Trump.
The family was ordered to sit for sworn testimony and submit documents related to his organisation’s financial condition, which his own accountants at the firm Mazars USA recently determined are unreliable.
Not only did Mr Trump “not comply at all” with the court order, he served a “response” to the office of the attorney general “raising objections to each of the eight document requests in the subpoena based on grounds such as overbreadth, burden, and lack of particularity,” according to the motion from Ms James’s office.
“This court’s order was not an opening bid for a negotiation or an invitation for a new round of challenges to the subpoena,” according to the motion. “It was, rather, a court order entered after full briefing and argument during which Mr Trump could have, but did not, raise any of the purported objections or assertions he has now raised.”
