Former President Donald Trump answered questions for nearly seven hours in a New York deposition this week related to a civil case brought by Attorney General Letitia James, according to his attorney.
The lawyer, Christopher Kise, told the Association Press and other media that Mr. Trump described “in detail his extraordinary business success” during the marathon session. The lawsuit accuses Mr. Trump of misrepresenting aspects of their family business for financial gain.
“The transactions at the center of this case were wildly profitable for the banks and for the Trump entities,” Mr. Kise said Thursday after the deposition. “When the facts of this success, and not politically engineered soundbites, are out in the open, everyone will scoff at the notion any fraud took place.”
Mr. Trump had returned to New York from his residence in Florida for the first time since his historic arraignment on April 4 on criminal charges of falsifying business records. A grand jury indicted Mr. Trump after an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Ms. James’ civil case alleges Mr. Trump manipulated the value of his business assets to borrow money on more favorable terms, pay lower insurance premiums and face lower taxes. For example, it says Mr. Trump inflated the value of his apartment by listing it as 30,000 square feet instead of its actual size of 11,000 square feet.
The New York cases are part of a tangle of legal troubles for Mr. Trump as he launches a 2024 bid to retake the White House.
Special counsel Jack Smith is looking into the discovery of sensitive documents at Mr. Trump’s estate at Mar-a-Lago and whether anyone impeded archivists’ efforts to retrieve the records. He is also probing Mr. Trump’s actions following the 2020 election.
Mr. Trump says the investigations are politically motivated and designed to thwart his political ambitions. He leads the emerging GOP primary field by wide margins and says his fight against prosecutors in liberal areas is only making him stronger.
