Donald Trump begins appeal of contempt order, $10,000-a-day fine, for dodging NY AG Letitia James subpoena
Associated Press
- Donald Trump's lawyer filed a notice of appeal in Manhattan on Wednesday.
- The full appeal would challenge Trump's being held in contempt and fined $10,000 a day for failing to comply with a subpoena.
- The notice says NY AG Letitia James refused to hold good-faith discussions with Trump's side before seeking the fine.
A lawyer for Donald Trump has given notice to a Manhattan appeals court that the former president will fight being held in contempt of court and fined $10,000-a-day, as a New York state-level judge had ordered on Monday.
Monday's contempt order had found Trump failed to comply with a court-approved subpoena from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is investigating his Manhattan-based real estate business.
James is demanding Trump turn over a decade's worth of personal business documents as her three-year probe of the Trump Organization winds to an end.
The AG has complained that Trump has turned over just ten such documents.
In court papers and hearings, James' lawyers have said they are especially keen on seeing hard-copy documents they believe have been stored at the company headquarters, inside file cabinets located on the 25th and 26th floors of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
In the notice of appeal filed Wednesday, Trump attorney Alina Habba questioned whether the AG "demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence" that Trump failed to comply with the subpoena.
Trump's side has argued that the Trump Organization has already turned over 900,000 documents to the AG, including the ten they'd identified as being in Trump's "custody." There are no more documents to turn over, they argued.
The notice of appeal also questions whether the AG engaged in "good-faith discussions" with Trump's side prior to seeking the contempt order.
The notice further questions "whether the imposition of the $10,000 daily fine serves any purpose as either a compensatory or coercive remedy."
Trump attorney Alina Habba has said she hopes to resolve the contempt matter quickly, and well before a full appeal would be filed, by providing the AG's office and the lower court with a requested detailed accounting of the locations that were searched for Trump's documents.
Asked if Trump has yet to pay the first installment of the fine, Habba did not immediately respond.
"The judge's order was clear: Donald J. Trump is in contempt of court and must pay $10,000 a day until he complies with our subpoenas," James said in a press statement responding to the notice of appeal.
"We've seen this playbook before, and it has never stopped our investigation of Mr. Trump and his organization. This time is no different."