The Daily Fuckup

Donald Trump’s subpoena fight with New York’s attorney general was still in play in early June 2022, but the key legal step came weeks earlier. On May 11, Justice Arthur Engoron said Trump could purge a contempt finding if he met court-set conditions by May 20, including paying $110,000 in fines to the attorney general’s office. The contempt issue arose from Trump’s refusal to comply with subpoenas tied to the office’s ongoing investigation into possible financial fraud and misrepresentations involving him and the Trump Organization.

The court record shows that Trump paid the $110,000 on May 20, but the matter was not over. The judge had also required additional affidavits describing the document searches his team had conducted, the destruction and retention policies it followed, and confirmation that a third-party document review was complete. The attorney general’s office said those remaining conditions still mattered before the contempt finding could be fully cleared.

That left the dispute focused on enforcement, not the final merits of the broader investigation. The attorney general had moved to hold Trump in contempt after saying he had not complied with a prior order to produce records. Trump’s side fought the contempt finding, while the state pushed to keep pressure on him through the subpoena process.

A later civil fraud lawsuit filed in September 2022 was separate, but it grew out of the same broader inquiry into Trump’s business practices. The June 2 takeaway is narrower: the records fight was still active, the fine had been paid, and the court had not yet been satisfied that Trump had done everything required to clear the contempt finding.