NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump spent hours in the New York attorney general's office on Thursday for his second deposition in a legal battle over his company's business practices, with his attorneys hinting that he answered the question this time instead of invoking the Fifth Amendment protections against himself. accusation.
“President Trump was not only willing but willing to testify before the Attorney General today,” his attorney, Alina Habba, said in a statement issued shortly after Trump entered the Manhattan skyscraper. “He remains firm in his stance that he has nothing to hide, and he looks forward to educating the Attorney General about the massive success of his multibillion-dollar company.”
Republicans met with attorneys for Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump last year. Her lawsuit claims Trump and his family misled banks and business associates by providing them with false information about his net worth and the value of assets such as hotels and golf courses.
The lawsuit is unrelated to the felony criminal charges filed against Trump by the Manhattan district attorney, which last week led to his historic indictment, the first for the former president.
In a social media post Thursday morning, Trump called the lawsuit “ridiculous, just like all the other Election Interference cases brought against me.”
He raised his fist as he left his Trump Tower apartment, with his motorcade arriving at the attorney general's office at around 9:42 a.m. Trump was still in the building more than five hours later.
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James declined to answer questions about the deposition at a news conference on unrelated matters on Wednesday.
Trump previously met with attorney James on Aug. 10, but declined to answer all but a few procedural questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights more than 400 times. At that time, James had not filed his lawsuit and it was unclear whether questions about Trump's way of valuing his company would form the basis of a criminal case.
“Anyone in my position who does not accept the Fifth Amendment is going to be an idiot, an absolute idiot,” he said in the statement, which was recorded on video and later released publicly. Trump predicts “defective” prosecutors will try to build a criminal case out of his answers, if he provides them.
“A statement or answer that is slightly off the mark, just a little bit, accidentally, by mistake, such as a beautiful sunny day, when in fact it is a little overcast, will be met by law enforcement at a level rarely seen in this country, because I have experienced it ,” he said.
Circumstances since then have changed. The criminal charges filed by the Manhattan district attorney focus on how the company internally accounted for payments to an attorney, Michael Cohen, for his work paying people not to publish stories about extramarital sex that Trump claims never happened.
The lawsuit that James brought is scheduled to go to trial in October. Video footage of Trump's deposition could potentially be played in court if the lawsuit is not resolved.
Thursday's deposition was in private.