President Trump and his legal team submitted sworn affidavits that they have complied with subpoenas from the corrupt New York Attorney General Letitia James, but the judge refused to remove the $10k fine, claiming they need to do more.
CNBC – A New York judge Friday denied a request by lawyers for former President Donald Trump to lift a contempt of court finding despite the submission of new sworn affidavits from Trump and his attorneys that argue he has complied with a subpoena from the state attorney general.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron said that the new affidavits attesting to Trump’s and others’ inability to locate documents sought by Attorney General Letitia James were not sufficient to purge Trump of being held in contempt. And Engoron ordered Trump to submit a more detailed affidavit swearing to information related to the search for the requested documents.
In a letter to Engoron, lawyers for James said that he should not lift the contempt order, which has a $10,000-per-day fine against Trump attached to it, until more extensive searches for the documents are conducted than the ones Trump’s lawyers said had been done.
That search, the AG’s lawyers said, should include all of Trump’s mobile phones, Trump Tower in Manhattan, each of Trump’s properties where he maintains a “private residence” and “personal office,” off-site storage locations, and in “all electronic devices issued by the Trump Organization to Trump’s executive assistants.
Engoron effectively agreed, writing in an order later Friday that the affidavits filed by Trump and his lawyers “are insufficient in that they fail to specify who searched for each respective request, at what time, where, and using what search protocols.”
“Furthermore, Mr. Trump’s personal affidavit is completely devoid of any useful detail,” the judge wrote. “Notably, it fails to state where he kept his files, how his files were stored in the regular course of business, who had access to such files, what, if any, the retention policy was for such files, and, importantly, where he believes such files are currently located.”
Engoron’s ruling upholding his contempt order was issued at a hearing called on such short notice that it was not publicly announced by the court.
It honestly sounds like this New York judge is a puppet for James and her prosecutors.
After all, they are the ones who called for the daily $10k fine and that’s what the judge ordered.
They argue that Trump’s team hasn’t done enough to comply with the subpoena, and that’s what the judge rules.
Something seems very fishy to me about this judge and it does as well to Trump’s legal team:
Habba earlier this week appealed Engoron’s contempt finding. That appeal has yet to be heard.
Habba in an emailed statement said, “Today’s events have made it overwhelmingly clear that this case no longer has anything to do with the proper application of legal principles governing discovery disclosure.”
“The Court completely disregarded the detailed affidavits that demonstrate the meticulous efforts undertaken to effectuate this search,” Habba said. “This Court has improperly held my client in contempt for a violation that he did not commit solely because the [Office of the Attorney General] declared it ‘insufficient’ without any basis.”
“The tactics employed by this Court, including the dramatic pounding of the gavel, the statements directed to our client from the bench, and direct comments to the press have reduced this hearing to the likes of a public spectacle,” she said. “We will zealously prosecute our appeal of the Court’s improper application of both law and fact.”
I’ll let you know if their appeal is successful as soon as it is reported. You can read more details about this in the CNBC article.