Attorneys for the Attorney General’s Office said in a new lawsuit that Rona Graf, who had been Trump’s executive assistant for decades until she left last April, agreed to answer questions next Tuesday.
Lawyers said they wanted to ask her, among other things, about the Trump Organization’s policy of preserving and destroying documents, as well as Trump’s involvement in the preparation of the Trump Organization’s financial statements.
“Did he review the draft statement before signing the final version each year?” Did he annotate any drafts with comments and / or questions? If so, what happened to these drafts? What was the final version of the statement submitted for approval by Mr. Trump each year? How did he clearly express his approval? “Said state attorneys.
The lawsuit is the latest step in the battle between the attorney general’s office and Trump’s compliance with a subpoena. Trump said there were no records sought by the subpoena. The Trump organization said it had identified 10 documents from Trump’s business archives. Earlier this month, a New York judge accused Trump of civil disrespect, fining him $ 110,000 for failing to provide records or demonstrating that he and his legal team had made efforts to eradicate any documents.
Last week, Trump transferred the money to an escrow account and presented 11 sworn statements by lawyers and others from the Trump Organization to try to support his position that they searched archives and electronic files to comply with the summons. One of these sworn statements was filed by Graf, but state attorneys say it “raises a series of obvious questions.”
“Ms. Graf’s affidavit does not include the practice of detention and retention in connection with the Financial Statements that Mr. Trump has signed and are the main focus of the OAG investigation.” They write that she is also silent about what she did with all the recordings she received from Trump, unlike the recordings that Trump himself wrote.
“What happened to the correspondence he received from both Trump and non-Trump employees?” They asked.
State attorneys also said it was “amazing” that the Trump Organization could not find other former executive aides, and said they wanted to know what efforts had been made to track them down. In addition, state attorneys said Trump did not submit an affidavit from Trump’s executive assistant by December 2021. They asked the judge to extend Trump’s deadline to meet those requirements to clear his disrespect by June 1 instead of to move to recover the daily fine of $ 10,000.
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