September 23, 2020

Judge Orders Eric Trump to Sit for Interview With New York Attorney General’s Office

The president’s son had tried to stall the deposition until after the election.

Kristin Callahan/Ace Pictures via ZUMA Press

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A New York state judge ordered Eric Trump to sit for a deposition with New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office by October 7 as part of her ongoing investigation into whether Donald Trump and the Trump Organization committed tax or bank fraud by misrepresenting company finances when applying for loans and filing taxes. 

The investigation also focuses on whether Donald Trump paid taxes on more than $100 million in forgiven debt connected to the development of Trump’s Chicago hotel and tower. The scrutiny of this loan came after Mother Jones reported last year that a mysterious debt listed on Trump’s personal financial disclosure may be evidence of tax fraud. Worth $50 million or more (financial disclosures list assets and liabilities in ranges), this loan is held by a Trump-controlled entity called Chicago Unit Acquisition. In other words, Trump claims to owe this debt to himself. The Trump Organization has largely refused to discuss loan, but Donald Trump did once address the matter in an interview with the New York Times, saying it was a debt he had repurchased from a lender. Trump had two loans connected to the Chicago project: the first, through Deutsche Bank, was eventually refinanced through the German financial firm’s private banking division. The second loan, initially for $120 million, was issued by private equity firm Fortress. Mother Jones confirmed that Trump did not repurchase that loan—he paid the lender $48 million and the remainder of the debt was forgiven. Whether Trump bought the loan or settled it is an important distinction: When a loan is forgiven, the borrower owes a hefty tax bill, but if he or she buys it, the borrower can defer that tax liability at least temporarily. James’ office confirmed the loan was forgiven and subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records to prove that it had indeed properly reported the $100 million in forgiven debt as income—and paid the appropriate taxes.

After being subpoenaed in May, Eric Trump had agreed to be interviewed under oath by James’ office, but he abruptly backed out of the interview and had not agreed to a new date. Last month, James filed a request with Judge Arthur Engoron complaining that her office had sent a number of subpoenas to the Trump Organization which had stopped cooperating after initially complying.

Last week, Eric Trump’s attorneys submitted a court filing stating that Trump would be happy to testify—though he recently said otherwise in a FOX News radio interview—but not until after the election. Engoron rejected that argument on Wednesday, saying Trump’s attorneys had failed to offer any support for that argument and ordering the Trump Organization to comply with the New York AG’s requests.

“This court finds that application unpersuasive, Mr. Trump cites no authority in support of his request and in any event neither petitioner nor court is bound by timelines of the national election,” he said.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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