NY asks judge to hold Donald Trump in civil contempt

NEW YORK - New York Attorney General Letitia James asked a judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt for his refusal to comply with a court order to produce documents in response to a subpoena served on him by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) as part of its ongoing investigation into his financial dealings.

The motion for contempt, filed in New York County State Supreme Court, seeks to impose a $10,000 fine for every day that he continues to violate the court’s order.

"The judge’s order was crystal clear: Donald J. Trump must comply with our subpoena and turn over relevant documents to my office," Attorney General James said in a statement. "Instead of obeying a court order, Mr. Trump is trying to evade it. We are seeking the court’s immediate intervention because no one is above the law."

In February 2022, a judge rejected Mr. Trump’s challenge to OAG’s subpoena and ruled that he was required to "comply in full" by producing a range of documents as part of an investigation into his and the Trump Organization’s financial dealings.

Trump was initially ordered to produce those documents by March 3, 2022, but OAG agreed to accommodate his request for additional time and extended the date to March 31, 2022.

The attorney general says that Trump agreed to this timeline and never sought to challenge this aspect of the order on appeal. However, on March 31, 2022, Trump raised a new round of objections to the document requests in the subpoena and stated that he would not produce any documents responsive to OAG’s subpoena.