- A Manhattan judge has set April 25 for the next in-court battle between lawyers for Donald Trump and Letitia James.
- The NY AG wants Trump to pay $10K a day for failing to turn over personal business documents.
- Judge Arthur Engoron could decide that day if Trump is in contempt of court — and has to pay up.
Donald Trump may learn on April 25 if he must pay a stiff, daily fine — as high as $10,000 a day — for failing to turn over personal business documents to Letitia James, the New York Attorney General who is investigating the former president's real estate dealings.
James requested the fine — and that Trump be held in contempt of court — on Thursday, arguing that out of 900,000 Trump Organization documents that have been turned over so far in her three-year probe, only ten were from his personal business files.
A Manhattan judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, has agreed to consider her request.
Trump's lawyers now have until April 19 to respond to James, and make the case for why he is not in contempt. Her office must then reply to that response by April 22. Both sides are scheduled to appear in Engoron's courtroom on April 25 to argue their case in person.
Engoron is presiding over the AG's multi-year effort to get documents she says are necessary to her probe, and Trump's side says are over-broad and already fully complied with.
The judge is also presiding over a related battle in which Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. are fighting the AG's subpoenas demanding they sit for depositions.
In each of the last two hearings on these matters, he has issued same-day decisions.
In February he ordered the Trump family members to comply with the AG's deposition subpoenas, a matter that's now under appeal.
And after an in-person hearing in his courtroom in March, the judge issued a same-day order requiring a third-party e-documents firm to provide more frequent and thorough reports on its progress in finding the documents James wants.
Lawyers for Trump and the Trump organization and a spokesperson for the AG's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.