- A judge ruled Thursday that Trump must sit for a deposition in AG Tish James' civil inquiry.
- Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. must also comply with subpoenas for testimony, the judge said.
- The ruling comes after Trump's lawyers argued that James' probe is politically biased and invalid.
A Manhattan judge on Thursday ruled that former President Donald Trump must sit for a deposition and provide personal business documents in the New York Attorney General's civil probe into alleged financial wrongdoing at the Trump Organization.
Two of the former president's adult children, Ivanka and Donald Jr., must also comply with AG Letitia James' subpoenas for their testimony, the judge ruled. He ordered the three of them to sit for depositions within 21 days.
Lawyers for the Trump family argued in a court hearing that their clients should not have to comply with James' civil probe subpoenas because anything they say in a deposition could be used in a criminal probe that James is also running in tandem with an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's office.
But state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that the Trump legal team's argument "overlooks the salient fact that they have an absolute right to refuse to answer questions that they claim may incriminate them."
"Indeed, respondent Eric Trump invoked the right against self-incrimination more than 500 times during his one-day deposition arising out of the instant proceeding," Engoron wrote in his ruling.
The ruling followed a contentious hearing Thursday morning, during which lawyers for James and Trump squared off over whether the former president and his two adult children should have to comply with the AG's subpoenas.
Alan Futerfas, who represents the Trump Organization, and Ron Fischetti and Alina Habba, who represent Donald Trump personally, all argued that if investigators want the Trump's testimony, they should subpoena him to testify before the DA's grand jury.
"They want to ask him questions under oath, fine," Trump attorney Ron Fischetti had argued before Engoron earlier Thursday. "Put him in a grand jury," where he would automatically get immunity from criminal prosecution for any misdeeds he described.
Engoron rejected that argument.
"The target of a hybrid civil/criminal investigation cannot use the Fifth Amendment as both sword and a shield; a shield against questions and a sword against the investigation itself," he wrote. "When they are deposed, the New Trump Respondents will have the right to refuse to answer any questions that they claim might incriminate them, and that refusal may not be commented on or used against them in a criminal prosecution."
The judge said the investigation was perfectly legitimate
Trump has also argued repeatedly, in state and federal court filings and even on Twitter, that James should recuse herself due to the politically-motivated "bias" she showed toward Trump during her 2018 campaign to be New York's top law enforcement officer.
While on the campaign trail, James called Trump an "illegitimate president" and warned that he should be "scared" of her. In federal court, his lawyer Alina Habba asked the judge to halt the investigation, alleging that it was tainted by politics.
"What they were saying is 'We don't trust the AG because this is a politically motivated prosecution," former New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco told Insider of Trump's lawyers' arguments on Thursday.
"They're saying, 'So if they really want to hear what [Trump] has to say, they have to put him before a grand jury, where there is no risk that a political prosecution can be carried out," said Vacco, who was AG from 1995 to 1998, and is currently a partner at the national firm Lippes Mathias.
In court papers filed last month, James' office said that her office has "uncovered substantial evidence establishing numerous misrepresentations in Mr. Trump's financial statements provided to banks, insurers and the Internal Revenue Service."
Earlier this week, Trump's longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA, sent a letter to the Trump Organization saying that ten years of Trump's statements of financial condition "should no longer be relied upon" in light of James' findings and an internal investigation by the firm.
"While we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies, based upon the totality of the circumstances, we believe our advice to you to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appropriate," the firm said in its letter to the Trump Organization.
Mazars went on to say that because of its decision regarding Trump's statements as well as "the totality of the circumstances," it will no longer be able to "provide any new work product to the Trump Organization."
Engoron on Thursday chided some of James' statements as "overtly aggressive" Thursday but said that the documents provided ample basis for the legitimacy of the investigation.
More than a dozen current and former Trump Organization executives have already complied with her subpoenas and given testimony, though many, she has complained, were less than helpful on the stand, including Eric Trump and indicted CFO Allen Weisselberg.