Former President Donald Trump pleaded the Fifth Amendment for nearly four hours while sitting for a deposition in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud investigation last summer.
Trump is seen in the newly released video taken on Aug. 10, 2022, sitting under oath and answering questions from New York Attorney General Letitia James, per CBS News. The New York Attorney General’s Office filed an exhibition on Oct. 13, making sections of Trump’s deposition public.
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The former president answered “yes” when asked if he was familiar with the rules of giving a deposition.
“I don’t know what I did wrong, but the answer is yes, I do understand,” Trump told James.
He then proceeded to invoke the Fifth Amendment, which protects people from incriminating themselves, for nearly four hours.
Trump also read a prepared statement into the record, calling James a “renegade and out-of-control prosecutor.”
“This is the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country,” Trump said of the investigation.
The investigation deals with a $250 million fraud lawsuit against Trump, three of his adult children, and his company for fraudulent business practices. It is part of a yearslong investigation by James into the former president’s financial dealings in New York.
“This investigation revealed that Donald Trump engaged in years of illegal conduct to inflate his net worth … to deceive banks and the people of the great state of New York,” James said when she announced the lawsuit.
James alleged in the lawsuit that Trump embellished the worth of “most if not all” of his properties on more than 200 occasions. He also allegedly presented factually inaccurate financial statements.
Three of Trump’s children, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump, were named in the lawsuit for their roles as executives in the company at some point during the alleged crimes.
The former president and his children have adamantly denied any wrongdoing.
“This whole thing is very unfair,” Trump said in his deposition video. “Anyone in my position not taking the Fifth Amendment would be a fool, an absolute fool.”
At the onset, Trump responded to three questions, saying, “For all of the reasons provided in my answer, which is incorporated herein it its entirety, I decline to answer the question.”
Senior enforcement counsel Kevin Wallace of the attorney general’s office eventually told Trump he could respond with, “Same answer” — “to speed things up.” Trump did not provide any details as to whether he was aware that the values listed in reports included “false and misleading statements.”
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Wallace also asked Trump about the involvement of former Trump Organization CEO Allen Weisselberg, who was handed a five-month sentence for operating a tax fraud scheme within Trump’s real estate company for 15 years. Weisselberg is also named alongside Trump and his children in James’s $250 million lawsuit.
The attorney general’s case is set to go to trial on Oct. 2 after Trump’s attorneys failed to get the date pushed back.
