Former President Donald Trump and two of his children on Wednesday filed a notice of appeal with New York's highest court seeking to block an order forcing their testimony in the state attorney general's investigation into the Trump Organization.
Trump, daughter Ivanka Trump, and son Donald Trump Jr. filed the notice after agreeing to testify in Attorney General Letitia James' investigation, the New York Post reported. They are scheduled to testify beginning July 15.
That agreement, however, would be in effect unless the state's Court of Appeals decided they don't have to be deposed. The Trumps had until June 13 to ask the court to issue a stay.
It was unclear if the Court of Appeals will hear the Trumps' case, the Post reported.
The Trumps made two previous unsuccessful attempts to block James' subpoenas for their testimony.
U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, on May 27 found that Trump and the Trump Organization did not prove that James began her investigation in bad faith or as a way to retaliate against Trump for his political beliefs.
A day earlier, a four-judge panel in the appellate division of the state's trial court upheld a Feb. 17 ruling that enforced subpoenas requiring that Trump and his two eldest children give deposition testimony in James' probe.
James, a Democrat, launched her probe of the Trump real estate company in 2019 following congressional testimony from former President Trump's ex-personal lawyer Michael Cohen alleging that company assets for loan, insurance, and tax purposes had been exaggerated.
The attorney general in 2020 filed suit claiming that the Trump Organization was stonewalling her probe.
Former President Trump had faced a civil contempt order for not meeting a March 31 deadline to respond to James' subpoena for documents. That order, though, has been lifted conditionally, with Trump paying $110,000 in fines that are being held in escrow.
On Wednesday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron declined to close out the contempt order until Trump's lawyers filed additional affidavits from company employees about the document retention and destruction policy, the Post reported.
Trump has an appeal pending against the contempt order.
via newsmax