NEW YORK — Donald Trump and two of his children urged a judge to reject subpoenas for their testimony in New York’s civil probe of the former president’s company, arguing it overlaps too much with a parallel criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney.
The subpoenas by New York Attorney General Letitia James seek to dodge the grand jury protections “guaranteed to every witness” while she is “entwined in a criminal grand jury investigation of the very same matters,” Trump lawyer Alina Habba said in a filing late Tuesday. Habba said an earlier filing by James defending the subpoenas “deliberately avoids addressing the extent” of her coordination with the DA’s office.
If James’s investigators want the testimony, “they can call these witnesses before the very grand jury they are utilizing,” she said.
Habba asked the court to put the civil case on hold until the criminal matter is resolved and requested a hearing. She also reiterated her claim that James is biased against Trump.
“For the last three years, Ms. James has relentlessly targeted former President Donald J. Trump, his family, his companies and his associates because of her dislike of his speech and political views,” Habba said. “It is a blatant and obvious attempt to suppress his voice, interfere with his political ambitions and silence the will of millions of voters — a violation of our nation’s most fundamental constitutional rights.”
Her filing is the latest clash between James and Trump, who has long accused the Democrat of targeting him for political purposes. James earlier this week slammed Trump for what she described as threatening comments about her and other investigators during a heated MAGA rally in Texas on Saturday.
James said in a statement that Habba’s filing was “another baseless attempt” by Trump and the Trump Organization “to evade accountability.”
“Throughout the three years of this investigation, they have never questioned our legal authority until Donald J. Trump himself was subpoenaed to testify,” she said. In her earlier filing she said the parallel probes are no reason to do without the testimony and that “each witness is free to invoke their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”
James has said there is nothing unusual about working on a civil and criminal probe simultaneously, or doing so in coordination with a district attorney. She argues the subpoenas for Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump are appropriate under the circumstances of the civil investigation. Eric Trump had already been deposed in the probe.
The case is New York v. The Trump Organization, 451685/2020, Supreme Court of the State of New York (Manhattan).
