New York AG details new areas of interest in company probe

New York state Attorney General Letitia James this week laid out what she described as “significant evidence” of fraudulent activity by former President Donald Trump and his company — but a decision on whether to take legal action could be months away.

In papers filed Tuesday with the New York Supreme Court, James’ office detailed some of the evidence unearthed in its ongoing civil probe into the former president and the Trump Organization in a bid to get a judge to enforce subpoenas against Trump and two of his children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. All three have worked as top executives at the company.

But pushing the multiyear investigation forward may require substantially more evidence.

James said the company has been slow to turn over documents involving Trump, even though he “personally executed documents central to the issues under investigation.” Among the items the AG wants to review are “file cabinets at the Trump Organization holding Mr. Trump’s files,” as well as “Post-It notes” that he used “to communicate with his employees,” Tuesday’s court filing said.

The Trump Organization has turned over “more than 930,000 documents” to date and “approximately a dozen current and former Trump Organization employees” have testified in the investigation, James said, but investigators will need information from the three Trumps before deciding whether to pursue a civil case against the company and others.

“The knowledge and actions of Mr. Trump’s agents and attorneys can be imputed to Mr. Trump himself. But Mr. Trump’s actual knowledge of—and intention to make—the numerous misstatements and omissions made by him or on his behalf are essential components to resolving” the investigation, James wrote.

Danny Cevallos, a defense lawyer and NBC News legal analyst, said the allegations against the Trump Organization could lead to criminal problems for the company as well. “Generally, lying to a bank to obtain a loan can be a crime,” Cevallos said.

James, in a statement Tuesday, said, “Thus far in our investigation, we have uncovered significant evidence that suggests Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization falsely and fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit.”

Her office added that it “has not yet reached a final decision regarding whether this evidence merits legal action.”

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. Responding to James’ filing earlier this week, a company spokesperson said that “the allegations are baseless and will be vigorously defended.”

The court filing from the state attorney general said investigators have already deposed Trump’s son Eric Trump, who was also a top executive at the company, but suggested he wasn’t very helpful. He “invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to more than 500 questions over six hours,” the filing said.

Now-former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg also took the fifth over 500 times during more than five hours of testimony, James said.

Attorneys for Eric Trump and Weisselberg did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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