The Daily Fuckup

The New York attorney general’s civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s finances was still open on Oct. 16, 2021, but the legal flashpoint had already happened weeks earlier. On Sept. 24, a New York state judge unsealed an order directing the company to keep complying with subpoenas from Attorney General Letitia James’s office, with the prospect of an outside firm stepping in to oversee the collection and review of electronic records if the company did not cooperate. James said at the time that the office would continue pressing for documents the Trump Organization had not fully produced. citeturn0search0turn0search1

James’s office said the civil inquiry began in 2019 after Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, testified about how Trump’s financial statements could be used to boost asset values in one setting and cut them in another. The office also said the investigation remained active after a separate July 2021 criminal indictment charged Trump Organization entities and former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg in a tax case. That indictment was a different matter from the civil subpoena fight, even though both cases kept the company under intense legal pressure. citeturn0search1turn0search2

By the Oct. 16 edition date, the important point was not a new ruling. It was that the civil case had moved into a longer enforcement phase: the subpoenas were still in play, the documents still mattered, and the company was still being forced to account for how its records were assembled and reviewed. citeturn0search0turn0search1