New York state attorney general to question Donald Trump this week

iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-

Former US President Donald Trump will face questioning from the New York State attorney general’s office this week.

Trump, who had deposed several times over the years, contested the summons for the testimony, which could shape the outcome of the investigation into the former President and his family’s real estate business, the Trump Organization, according to a report in The New York Times.

On Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump in a statement said, “My beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”

Since March 2019, the New York attorney general, Letitia James and her lawyers have scrutinized whether Trump and his company fraudulently inflated the value of his hotels, golf clubs and other assets.

James said in a court filing earlier this year that the company’s business practices were “fraudulent or misleading,” but added that her office needed to question Trump and two of his adult children – Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr – to determine who was responsible for that conduct.

The trio’s questioning will represent the final stage of James’s investigation, which Trump has dismissed as a politically motivated witch hunt, reported The New York Times.

In January, Trump handed over 15 boxes of material to government record-keepers amid concern he may have violated the Presidential Records Act.

This comes as the January 6 select committee’s latest public hearing said that then US President Donald Trump chose not to intervene as a mob of his supporters attacked the US Capitol in Washington, DC.

However, the former president declined to say why the FBI agents were at Mar-a-Lago. He confirmed that the raid was unannounced and added “they even broke into my safe.”

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” Trump said in a statement. “After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections.”

He termed the incident an “assault that could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries” and noted that “sadly, America has now become one of those countries, corrupt at a level not seen before.”

He then compared the incident with the Watergate Scandal. “What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democratic National Committee?”

The Watergate scandal occurred during the administration of US President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 and led to his resignation.