AG asks judge to fine Trump $10,000 a day for defying document order in business probe

New York Attorney General Letitia James is asking a Manhattan judge to fine Donald Trump $10,000 a day until the former president complies with a court order to turn over documents for a civil investigation into his real estate business.

James's office filed the motion to hold Trump in contempt in state Supreme Court on Thursday, a week after Trump's deadline to turn over documents state investigators had demanded through a subpoena. Ordered by the judge in February to furnish the materials, Trump's attorneys instead posed new objections to the demands.

“The judge’s order was crystal clear: Donald J. Trump must comply with our subpoena and turn over relevant documents to my office,” James 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.”

Trump's attorney, Alina Habba, called the motion "frivolous and baseless" and vowed to oppose it in a statement.

"Our client has consistently complied with the many discovery requests served by the Attorney General’s office over the years,” Habba said.

James's office is investigating whether the Trump Organization deliberately misstated the valuations of its real estate holdings in official documents, inflating their worth to obtain loans and other financing and understating them for tax purposes.

The subpoena by investigators in December sought eight types of documents, as well as depositions by Trump and two of his children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, The Trumps then sued to try to quash the subpoena.

State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron denied their request on Feb. 17, ordering them to produce the demanded documents by March 3 and appear for questioning by March 10. The Trumps appealed the part of the ruling that compelled depositions, which was suspended while the appeal is pending.

But they agreed to produce the documents by a later deadline of March 31, according to the Attorney General's Office, which said it had consented to the extension. It said the documents included statements of financial condition, notes on valuations of assets and tax- and insurance-related materials.

What Trump's attorneys submitted instead on that date was a litany of objections, including that the demands were overly broad and burdensome and that the lawyers couldn't find the records. They said any such documents that exist would have to be produced by the Trump Organization after a longer search.

In their motion to hold Trump in contempt, state attorneys argued: "This Court’s order was not an opening bid for a negotiation or an invitation for a new round of challenges to the subpoena."

The civil investigation by James's office has been running in tandem with a separate, criminal probe, led by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, into the Trump Organization's financial dealings.

That criminal inquiry appeared to have fizzled without charges after a new district attorney, Alvin Bragg Jr., took office in January and two senior prosecutors on the Trump investigation then resigned in February, seemingly in protest.

But Bragg flatly dismissed that speculation on Thursday, saying in a statement that his office was continuing its investigation.

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for the Times Herald-Record and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@th-record.com.

This article originally appeared on New York State Team: New York AG asks judge to fine Trump $10,000 a day for flouting order