Former President Donald Trump, who once said “only the mob takes the fifth,” and argued that “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” is now declining to answer questions by New York attorney general Letitia James, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a deposition in her probe into alledged tax fraud by his company.
“Under the advice of my counsel” Trump said he “declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution,” according to an emailed statement released shortly after he arrived at the attorney general’s office in New York City Wednesday, Bloomberg reports.
In the statement, Trump attacked James as a “failed politician” and accused her of having “intentionally colluded with others” and calling the inquiry a political fishing expedition against his family.
James is wrapping up a three-year probe into an alleged decade-long pattern of financial wrongdoing at Trump Organization, the multi-billion-dollar conglomerate for which the former president is the sole owner and beneficiary.
At stake could be Trump’s business itself. James has signaled that she is preparing an enforcement action that will be the massive investigation’s final work product — a several-hundred-page lawsuit against Trump and his business that could seek millions in fines and even the dissolution of the company itself.
“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?'” Trump said in his statement. “Now I know the answer to that question. When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”
“If there was any question in my mind, the raid of my home, Mar-a-Lago, on Monday by the FBI, just two days prior to this deposition, wiped out any uncertainty. I have absolutely no choice because the current Administration and many prosecutors in this Country have lost all moral and ethical bounds of decency,” the statement continued.
“Accordingly, under the advice of my counsel and for all of the above reasons, I declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the United States Constitution,” it said.
But Trump is not out of the woods. Should James’ eventual lawsuit against Trump go to a jury, the tape of Trump repeatedly pleading the Fifth to a long recitation of AG investigator questions will be played in open court. Under New York law, the judge will instruct jurors that they are allowed to draw what’s called an “adverse inference” from the tape.
In other words, unlike in a criminal case, they’ll be able to hold Trump’s refusal to answer questions against him, as an indication of guilt.
During the 2016 election, Trump suggested that staffers who worked for then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had something to hide when they invoked their Fifth Amendment rights during a congressional investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state.
“The mob takes the Fifth,” he said at a September 2016 campaign rally. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”
