Trump’s Eldest Sons: Called To Testify in Fraud Inquiry

According to a court filing released on Monday, the New York Attorney General Letitia James called for the testimony of former President Donald Trump and his two eldest children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, in a current civil investigation into the family’s business practices.

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The document states that the request for a statement by Trump, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump arise from an investigation "into the valuation of properties owned or controlled" by Trump and the Trump Organization. The request was first made in December, but the document issued on Monday was the first public disclosure in which Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr are mentioned in the investigation.

It is expected that Trump will file court papers to invalidate the subpoenas and set a legal fight, similar to the one that occurred last year when the James' office subpoenaed another of Trump's sons. Trump countersued James the previous month. After her request to present to the court  on January 7, the demand exposed that the probe violated his constitutional rights in a "thinly-veiled effort to publicly malign Trump and his associates." According to the lawsuit, the former President declared that James' office is "guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate and retaliate against a private citizen whom it considers a political opponent," according to the lawsuit.

James' investigations are intended to look at whether the Trump Organization misled banks or tax officials about the value of assets, increasing them to obtain more loan terms or minimizing them to reap tax savings. In a statement, James noted in December that "the Trump Organization has continually attempted to delay our investigation into its corporate business, and now Donald Trump and his eponymous company have filed suit as an attempted collateral attack on that investigation."

"To set the record straight, neither Mr. Trump nor the Trump Organization can mandate whether or where they will answer for their actions. Our investigation will not be intimidated because no one is above the law, not even someone with the last name Trump," James said last month. The civil and criminal investigations, run by the  Manhattan district attorney's office, operate apart, even though James' office had participated in both.

 Last year, after years of investigation, former District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr got access to the longtime real estate mogul's tax records. Before his retirement, he presented the evidence to a new grand jury, which ended in charges for tax fraud to the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg in July last year.

Weisselberg declared himself not guilty of the charges of tax evasion. The investigations are related to the statements made by the former personal lawyer of Trump, Michael Cohen, alleging that Trump had a history of misrepresenting the value of assets.