(New York) Donald Trump, heard under oath on Wednesday as part of a civil investigation into suspicions of financial fraud within his Trump Organization group, announced that he had refused to answer questions from the prosecutor’s office General of New York.
Posted at 8:53 a.m.
Updated at 10:26 a.m.
Saying again to be the victim of a “witch hunt”, he declared in a statement that he had “refused to answer questions, under the rights and prerogatives granted to every citizen by the Constitution of the United States”.
“At the lavish, beautiful and expensive office of the Attorney General (Letitia James). Great working conditions as people get killed in New York and she spends her time and effort trying to ‘catch Trump,’” the former US president also wrote on his Truth network. Social.
On this same media, Donald Trump announced Tuesday night that he had arrived in New York to “see the racist New York Attorney General tomorrow for the continuation of the biggest witch hunt in United States history”.
“My wonderful business and I are under attack from all sides,” he added, believing that the United States governed by Democrat Joe Biden was akin to a “Banana Republic”.
The 45e President of the United States left the Trump Tower in Manhattan around 1 p.m. GMT, raising his fist before rushing into his car towards the offices of the Attorney General of New York State.
“Most Corrupt”
One of his sons, Eric Trump, confirmed on Twitter that his “father (was going) to sit down for a deposition in front of the most corrupt of the attorneys general of the United States (Letitia James)”, further accusing the magistrate African-American Democrat to embody “evil”.
This hearing of Donald Trump – who plans to represent himself in 2024 – is claimed by Mme James for months and had been set for July 15. But the death of Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, had further postponed the event.
Asked by AFP, the office of the attorney general did not respond.
The businessman and two of his children Donald Jr and Ivanka Trump have finally bowed to pressure after three years of investigation by Mme James.
According to CNN, Ivanka and Donald Jr had discreetly been heard by the services of the Attorney General at the end of July and the beginning of August.
Fraud
The civil investigation against the family group Trump Organization had been opened in March 2019. After the explosive testimony in Congress in Washington by one of Donald Trump’s former personal lawyers, Michael Cohen, alleging fraudulent assessments, on the rise or downwards, assets within the Trump Organization, to obtain loans, obtain tax reductions or better insurance compensation.
Letitia James assured in January that she had “uncovered significant evidence suggesting that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization had falsely and fraudulently valued a number of assets”, in particular golf courses or the personal triplex of the American billionaire, located in the Trump Tower in New York.
PHOTO TED SHAFFREY, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
New York Attorney General Letitia James
Allegations swept away by Donald Trump’s lawyers, for whom Letitia James is leading a political “witch hunt”.
The Attorney General does not have the power to indict Donald Trump but she can initiate civil proceedings and in particular claim financial damages.
The alleged facts are also the subject of an investigation, criminal this time, led by Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg.
FBI raid
This hearing comes two days after a spectacular search of Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, which sparked outrage among Republicans.
He even suggested on Truth Social that the FBI may have “planted” evidence against him during the operation.
Never had a former tenant of the White House been worried by justice in this way.
Does the federal police search have to do with the many boxes that Donald Trump took with him when he left the White House in January 2021? Is it linked to the investigation into his responsibility in the assault on the Capitol? Does it rather concern the suspicions of financial fraud of which the Trump Organization is the subject in New York?
Neither the Justice Department nor the FBI has commented.
Donald Trump, who ostensibly flirts with a new candidacy in 2024, claims his innocence in each of these cases.