New York prosecutor wants to hear Trump and his kids in tax evasion case

The New York State prosecutor, who is investigating a possible tax fraud by the Trump Organization, wants to hear from former President Donald Trump and his children Ivanka and Donald Junior, a judicial source was told Monday.

According to a New York State Supreme Court document signed by Attorney Letitia James, the ex-president and two of his children are called as witnesses in the large-scale investigation launched in March 2019 on a possible tax fraud within the family group Trump Organization.

“Attorney General James wants Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump to give sworn statements,” a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said.

On December 7, the Washington Post revealed that Ms. James had summoned Donald Trump to come and testify in person in his office on January 7. Information never officially confirmed.

In an attempt to block his civil investigation, the former Republican president had filed a complaint on December 20 against the New York prosecutor, an elected member of the Democratic Party accused of political motives.

On Monday night, procedurally, Trump sent Ms. James a 20-page motion to “break” the subpoenas. Lawyers for the Trump family have called the prosecutor’s actions a “threat to our democracy.”

The prosecutor retorted in a statement that “for more than two years, members of the Trump family and the Trump Organization have continuously sought to delay and obstruct our investigation.”

“But despite their surname, they must play by the same rules as anyone else,” she hammered, asking the New York Supreme Court to “compel Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump to testify under oath at our office ”.

The prosecutor has suspected for nearly three years the Trump Organization of fraudulently overestimating the value of certain properties when it applied for loans to banks and of having underestimated these same properties with the tax authorities in order to pay less taxes. .

Eric Trump, another son of the billionaire Republican and vice-president of the Trump Organization, was interviewed by Ms James’ services in October 2020.

The family group is also the target of a criminal investigation by the Manhattan federal prosecutor on suspicion of financial crimes and insurance fraud. In this context, the financial director of the Trump Organization Allen Weisselberg, loyal among the faithful of Donald Trump, had pleaded in July not guilty of tax evasion.

Mr. Weisselberg is accused of deliberately withholding from the tax authorities, between 2005 and 2021, some $ 1.7 million in in-kind benefits he received from the Trump Organization, which would have saved him from paying close to a million dollars in federal and local taxes. His trial is due to begin in the middle of this year.

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