Judge: Eric Trump must testify in NY probe before election

Judge: Eric Trump must testify in NY probe before election

SeattlePI.com

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NEW YORK (AP) — Eric Trump must testify in a New York investigation into the family’s businesses before the November presidential election, a judge ruled Wednesday, rejecting lawyers’ claims that Trump's “extreme travel schedule” on the campaign trail warranted a delay.

State Judge Arthur Engoron said that President Donald Trump's son must comply with a subpoena for his testimony no later than Oct. 7, adding that the investigation and the court are not “bound by the timelines of the national election.”

Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, went to court to enforce the subpoena after Eric Trump's lawyers abruptly canceled a July interview with investigators in a probe about whether the family’s company, the Trump Organization, lied about the value of its assets in order to get loans or tax benefits.

Eric Trump, the company's executive vice president of development and acquisitions, was first served with the subpoena in May.

In a court filing last week, his lawyers said he was willing to comply with the subpoena, but only after the Nov. 3 election. Beside scheduling conflicts related to his father’s reelection campaign, they said they wanted “to avoid the use of his deposition attendance for political purposes.”

At Wednesday's hearing, Eric Trump's lawyer Alan Futerfas said they were “happy for him to sit down and be deposed,” but that they needed more time before he testifies to review with him thousands of pages of documents that James' office is seeking as part of the civil probe.

“As the world knows, there’s an election going on in about four weeks in this country, maybe five weeks,” Futerfas argued. “Eric Trump is a vital and integral part of that, and he’s traveling just about seven days a week.”

Matthew Colangelo, a lawyer for the attorney general’s office,...

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