Trump Takes Fifth Amendment in NY Deposition: Live Updates

The mere fact that the federal authorities had taken the remarkable step of searching the private residence of a former U.S. president was a reminder of just how much legal scrutiny Mr. Trump is under as he considers running for president again in 2024.

He and his family have criticized the various investigations swirling around him as partisan or vindictive, and they have denied wrongdoing.

Federal prosecutors investigating attempts to reverse Mr. Trump’s loss in the 2020 election have asked witnesses directly about his involvement in those efforts. In Georgia, a criminal inquiry is focused on his push to have the election results altered there.

More immediately, Mr. Trump is scheduled to be deposed on Wednesday by lawyers from the New York State attorney general’s office as part of a long-running civil inquiry into whether he and his family’s real estate business fraudulently inflated the value of his hotels, golf courses and other assets to obtain favorable loans.

The status of other investigations into the former president is harder to fathom, although one — a criminal inquiry by the Manhattan district attorney’s office — appeared to lose steam in the spring. (A matter that had receded into the background re-emerged on Tuesday, when a federal appeals court ruled that the House could gain access to Mr. Trump’s tax returns.)

Here is where the notable inquiries involving Mr. Trump stand.

New York State Civil Inquiry

Mr. Trump fought for months to avoid the high-stakes deposition he is scheduled to sit for on Wednesday, which could shape the outcome of the civil inquiry by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, into him and his family business, the Trump Organization. (The deposition was to have been in July; it was delayed after the death of his first wife, Ivana.)

Ms. James’s investigation, which is in its final stages, is focused on whether financial statements in which Mr. Trump valued his assets reflected a pattern of fraud, or were simply examples of his penchant for exaggeration.

Ms. James said in a court filing this year that the Trump Organization’s business practices were “fraudulent or misleading,” but that her office needed to question Mr. Trump and two of his adult children, Ivanka and Donald Jr., to determine who was responsible for the conduct.

The two sat for depositions recently after the judge overseeing the case ordered them to do so. Their brother Eric was interviewed in 2020 as part of the inquiry and repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to a court filing.

The former president’s deposition follows a protracted legal battle that resulted in a…