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| Eric Trump Will Comply With N.Y. Inquiry, but Only After Election | Eric Trump Will Comply With N.Y. Inquiry, but Only After Election |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| Two months after he abruptly canceled a previous session, Eric Trump is now ready to be interviewed under oath as part of an investigation by New York’s attorney general into the financing of his family company’s properties — but only after the presidential election. | |
| In a court filing on Thursday, lawyers for the company, the Trump Organization, expressed Mr. Trump’s willingness to comply with the inquiry by the attorney general, Letitia James. | In a court filing on Thursday, lawyers for the company, the Trump Organization, expressed Mr. Trump’s willingness to comply with the inquiry by the attorney general, Letitia James. |
| But while Mr. Trump is prepared to answer questions from lawyers with Ms. James’s office, he does not want to do so before Nov. 3, Election Day, because of an “extreme travel schedule” and “to avoid the use of his deposition attendance for political purposes,” the filing says. | |
| Mr. Trump — who, according to messages posted on Twitter, made campaign stops on behalf of his father, President Trump, in New Hampshire and Maine on Thursday — had offered four possible dates after the election to be interviewed, the filing says. | |
| “We respectfully submit that the proposed dates are reasonable,” the Trump Organization lawyers wrote. | |
| Ms. James appeared unmoved by Mr. Trump’s latest offer of cooperation. | |
| “We won’t allow any entity or individual to dictate how our investigation will proceed or allow anyone to evade a lawful subpoena,” she said in a statement. “No one is above the law, period.” | “We won’t allow any entity or individual to dictate how our investigation will proceed or allow anyone to evade a lawful subpoena,” she said in a statement. “No one is above the law, period.” |
| The filing on Thursday came after Ms. James, who is exploring whether the Trump Organization committed fraud by inflating its assets to get loans and tax benefits, asked a judge to order Mr. Trump to answer questions under oath and to also compel the company to hand over documents. | |
| Ms. James, a Democrat, sought the order after Mr. Trump, an executive vice president at the company who is now running its day-to-day operations, pulled out of an interview with her office in July, and the company said that it and its lawyers would not comply with seven subpoenas. | |
| Last year, Ms. James reached a settlement with the president under which he admitted misusing money from a personal foundation to promote his campaign and pay off business debt. Her current inquiry is one of several legal actions he and his company are facing. | |
| The Manhattan district attorney’s office has suggested in court filings that it is investigating possible financial crimes and insurance fraud by the president and the Trump Organization, and is fighting in federal court to obtain his tax returns. | |
| The president is also being sued for defamation by the writer E. Jean Carroll in a case that the Justice Department, in an unusual step, recently moved to take over from his private lawyers. | |
| Ms. James’s inquiry began last year after the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, told Congress that Mr. Trump had overstated the value of his assets in financial statements when seeking loans from banks and had understated them to reduce real estate taxes. | |
| The investigation is focused on a number of Trump properties, including several that came up during Mr. Cohen’s congressional testimony. The Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, N.Y., the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, 40 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan and the Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles, were the subject of the subpoenas. | |
| Court documents released last month suggested there were concerns within the Trump Organization that Ms. James’s inquiry could develop from a civil matter into a criminal one. | |
| Two days before Eric Trump was to answer questions under oath, the papers said, the company canceled the session, with its lawyers expressing concern that the investigation was going “beyond the scope” of a civil inquiry. | |
| The attorney general’s office subsequently assured the company that it had not referred the case to “another criminal law enforcement agency.” | |
| But the documents showed that Ms. James was asking questions not only about representations Mr. Trump and his company made to banks, but also about how they reported more than $120 million, mostly in forgiven debt, to local, state and federal tax authorities. | |
| Eric Trump responded defiantly after Ms. James asked the judge to compel his testimony, writing on Twitter that she had “pledged to take my father down from the moment she ran for office” and referring to her actions as “prosecutorial misconduct.” | |
| His comments came hours after Ms. James said on Twitter that the Trump Organization had “stalled, withheld documents, and instructed witnesses, including Eric Trump, to refuse to answer questions under oath.” | |
| The Trump Organization’s chief legal officer, Alan Garten, said in a statement last month that the company had done nothing wrong and had “tried to cooperate in good faith with the investigation at every turn.” He also accused Ms. James of “continued harassment of the company as we approach the election.” | |
| If Ms. James finds evidence of criminal offenses, she may refer the case to another law enforcement agency or ask Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York to authorize her office to open a criminal inquiry. | |
| A hearing in the case is scheduled for Sept. 23. |