A fight over Donald Trump’s business documents spilled over into a Manhattan courtroom Monday, with his lawyers complaining about New York Attorney General Letitia James’ intrusive “tentacles” and the AG’s side bemoaning anew what it sees as the former president’s foot-dragging.
Trump himself has turned over only ten personal business documents since James issued her first subpoenas to The Trump Organization two years and three months ago, lawyers for the AG revealed in court.
That’s just ten documents, in total, from the head of a multi-billion-dollar real estate business with international interests.
The AG’s office has repeatedly complained about the notoriously computer-averse Trump’s reluctance to part with hard copy records, believed to be kept at his headquarters in Trump Tower in Manhattan.
“It’s unbelievable that the Trump Organization could be near complete with the production of Mr. Trump’s documents,” Austin Thompson, a lawyer for the AG’s office, told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, the judge who’s presiding over the finger-pointing.
“There appears to be a serious gap” between what Trump has, and what he has turned over, Thompson complained.
Trump’s side, meanwhile, deflected blame for the delays right back onto the AG’s office.
James is investigating what she has alleged are rampant, self-serving inaccuracies in decades worth of the former president’s financial statements.
“Your honor, we’ve produced 900,000 documents; 6 million pages,” since James issued her first subpoenas, Trump Organization lawyer Lawrence Rosen told the judge, insisting the business has been more than responsive.
That includes documents culled from more than 100 of The Trump Organization’s employees and associates, he said.
“This is not something we want to delay,” he told Engoron. “But their investigation just continues to grow and expand. The tentacles are everywhere.”
The AG’s lawyers are pressing particularly hard because a clock is about to start ticking.
James is weighing whether to file a civil suit against Trump and his business, through which she could seek tax penalties or even the dissolution of his company.
She has also said publicly that she is uncovering possible criminal behavior, and so is mulling criminal charges.
Both the criminal and civil actions are time-bound by statutes of limitation; both sides have agreed to stop the statute of limitations clock until the end of April, by which deadline the Trump Organization must turn over all documents responsive to the AG’s subpoenas.
The end of April is also the deadline for an e-documents search firm HaystackID, a GOP-tied company that’s worked for Trump before to complete an independent, top-to-bottom, court-ordered examination of what documents still need to be turned over.
As to what the criminal and civil statute of limitations will ultimately be once the clock starts ticking again on May 1, “That’s a question that will be litigated high and low, your honor,” Thompson predicted to laughs from both sides.
Engoron on Monday issued an order that addressed the AG’s concerns that Haystack has been providing only vague, monthly progress reports with “no meat on them,” as Thompson put it.
The judge ordered Haystack to issue much more detailed weekly reports to all parties from now on.
The Trump Organization has until April 15 to turn over the remainder of its relevant documents including any from Trump himself and until April 20 to submit its own progress report.
They’re back in court on April 25.
Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. are separately fighting the AG’s demand that they sit for depositions in the civil side of her probe of the family business.
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