N.Y. attorney general accuses Trump of lying on the record in response to lawsuit over company

State Attorney General Letitia James on Tuesday accused former President Donald Trump of lying on the record, in a letter to a judge presiding over her lawsuit against his company.

Trump and his lawyers have falsely denied “facts they have admitted in other proceedings,” and failed to respond to factual allegations “plainly within their knowledge,” attorneys for James wrote in a letter to state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron.

On Tuesday, James’ office also released video of Trump pleading the fifth more than 400 times in a deposition in the case.

James alleges Trump and his kids violated the law through serial manipulation of the values of his properties to obtain loans, tax breaks and other benefits.

“A number of the denials are demonstrably false and actually contradict sworn statements by the defendants in other proceedings,” a lawyer for James wrote in a six-page letter.

James’ office asked Engoron to schedule a conference to discuss the matter, and said they plan to ask him to impose sanctions.

The same judge sanctioned Trump last year for failing to meet deadlines by fining him $10,000 a day for nearly two weeks.

The judge had ruled the former president flouted a court-ordered deadline to turn over paperwork.

“Mr. Trump, I know you take your business seriously, and I take mine seriously,” Engoron said at the time. “I hereby hold you in civil contempt and fine you $10,000 a day.”

Specifically, James took issue with objections from Trump’s lawyers regarding when he left his company for the White House. They disagreed with a characterization from James that Trump remained the “inactive president” of the Trump Organization.

James said Trump described himself that way in a sworn October 2021 deposition in a Bronx lawsuit brought by activists protesting his immigration policies.

“Well, I wasn’t active during the time I was at 1600,” Trump said in the deposition, according to court transcripts. “I would say that I was an inactive president and now I’m active again.”

In a taped deposition with James’ office in August, Trump invoked his right to stay silent more than 400 times.

“Anyone in my position not taking the Fifth Amendment would be a fool, an absolute fool,” Trump said in the testimony, a video of which the Daily News obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request.

“One statement or answer that is ever so slightly off — just ever so slightly, by accident, by mistake — such as, ‘It was a sunny and beautiful day,’ when actually, it was slightly overcast, would be met by law enforcement.”

The attorney general’s lawyers said Trump’s adult children and their lawyers have also alternately denied and admitted to things.

They said Eric Trump denied and stated in the same case that Seven Springs had purchased a building in December 1995 for $7.5 million.

James’ civil action lawsuit demands $250 million and to severely curtail the New York business prospects of Trump and his adult children.

Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba did not respond to a request for comment.

Advertisement