New York Attorney General Letitia James also demanded a $ 10,000-a-day fine from Trump until he complied. Trump and two of his children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, were ordered Feb. 17 to testify in a lengthy investigation into James’s political fraud. They appealed against the order to appear, but did not dispute at the time a separate part of that decision in which Donald Trump was ordered to comply with a “search for documents and information” summons. The judge ordered Trump to comply with the request for documents and information until March 3, and later extended that deadline to March 31 – a date agreed by both parties at the time, according to a court document. In Thursday’s statement, James’s office said Trump not only did not comply with the order, but in recent days has objected to it. James’s office said in a statement Thursday that Trump’s lawyers later said he would not provide any of the summoned documents “because his attorney (based on an undisclosed investigation) was unable to find any.” “The judge’s order was crystal clear: Donald J. “Trump must comply with our summons and hand over the relevant documents to my office,” James said in a statement. “Instead of obeying a court ruling, Mr. Trump is trying to avoid it. We are asking for the court to intervene immediately because no one is above the law.” A Trump lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. James’s office said in a February press release that its extensive research had gathered “evidence that Donald J. Trump and the Trump administration used fraudulent and misleading financial statements to obtain financial gain.” The initial focus of the investigation was on whether the Trump agency inflated asset valuations while seeking loans and insurance coverage and deflated their value to reduce tax liability.
James’s research was cited by accounting firm Mazars USA in a Feb. 9 letter recalling a decade-long financial statements prepared for the Trump Organization. As part of his investigation, James’s office is also seeking information from a second accounting firm that worked for Trump’s company, RSM US LLP. Trump and the company have repeatedly denied all allegations of wrongdoing. He called the inquiry “unconstitutional” in a telephone interview with CBS News on December 20 and described it as an “unjust and innocent party.” That day, Trump filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop James’s investigation. In Thursday’s motion, James’s office said Trump and his company had also thwarted the efforts of HaystackID, a company hired to collect so-called eDiscovery material, which includes documents and data. “The Trump Administration is not currently investigating any of Mr. Trump’s records or security devices and has no intention of doing so from now until April 15, 2022,” James’s office wrote in Thursday’s statement. James’s investigation was conducted in parallel with a separate criminal investigation conducted by the Manhattan Attorney’s Office. This investigation, which on July 1, 2021 led to accusations against the Trump Organization and its Chief Financial Officer, seems to have stopped. Two top prosecutors, Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz, resigned in February, less than two months after Manhattan’s newly elected Alvin Bragg took over, succeeding Cyrus Vance Jr., who began the investigation in August 2018. In Pomerantz’s resignation letter, which was published in the New York Times, Pomerantz wrote that Bragg “made the decision … not to seek criminal prosecution at this time.” A spokesman for Bragg recently said the investigation was ongoing.

Graham Cates

Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy, and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at [email protected] or [email protected]