Former President Donald J. Trump and two of his children had sought to block Letitia James, the attorney general, from interviewing them under oath.
The New York attorney general can question Donald J. Trump and two of his adult children under oath as part of a civil inquiry into his business practices, a judge ruled on Thursday, rejecting the former president’s effort to block the interviews.
The inquiry by the attorney general, Letitia James, and a parallel criminal investigation led by the Manhattan district attorney are examining whether Mr. Trump improperly inflated the value of his assets to receive favorable loans.
Lawyers for the Trump family had sought to prohibit Ms. James, a Democrat, from interviewing Mr. Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump. They had argued that she was politically biased against Mr. Trump and was inappropriately using her civil inquiry to aid the district attorney’s criminal investigation, which she is also participating in.
But the judge, Arthur F. Engoron, wrote that “this argument completely misses the mark.”
He ruled in favor of Ms. James’s lawyers, who had asked that the former president and the two adult children be interviewed in the next three weeks. The order also requires that the former president provide the attorney general with documents she sought in her subpoena.
“Today, justice prevailed,” Ms. James said in a statement, adding, “No one is above the law.” The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ruling does not mean that Ms. James will automatically receive the answers she is seeking. Mr. Trump and his children can invoke their constitutional right to not incriminate themselves, as Mr. Trump’s other adult son, Eric Trump, did when questioned by the attorney general’s office in October 2020. The Trump family can also appeal the decision.
The judge’s decision followed a fiery virtual hearing in State Supreme Court on Thursday, during which lawyers for Mr. Trump and the attorney general made their cases. Several times, Mr. Trump’s lawyers became so heated that Judge Engoron and his law clerk had to call for a timeout — raising their hands in the shape of a “T,” a gesture more often seen at a sporting event than in a courtroom.
Although Ms. James had signaled in court papers that she had amassed significant evidence against Mr. Trump’s family business — she has accused the Trump Organization of engaging in “fraudulent or misleading” practices — she has said that she needs to question Mr. Trump and his children before determining her next move.
Mr. Trump and his children sought to block the questioning, and Ms. James responded in a court filing last month, arguing that there was “heightened need” for testimony from the three family members. She said that by questioning them, she would be able to determine who was responsible for the misstatements and omissions that the organization made in its financial documents.
Because Ms. James’s inquiry is civil, she cannot bring criminal charges. If she finds evidence of criminal wrongdoing, she can file a lawsuit against Mr. Trump, his organization or others involved in the business. In last month’s filing, Ms. James said that her lawyers had not yet reached a final decision on a lawsuit but argued that “the grounds for conducting the investigation are beyond reproach.”
On Monday, Ms. James released a letter in which Mr. Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, cut ties with the former president and essentially retracted a decade’s worth of his financial statements. Those financial statements, which include various disclaimers noting that they are unaudited, are central to both the civil and criminal investigations into Mr. Trump.
The criminal investigation, which is similarly focused on whether Mr. Trump used those statements to mislead his lenders about the value of his hotels, golf clubs and other properties, is being led by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who inherited it when he took office in January.
Last year, under Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Manhattan prosecutors separately indicted the Trump Organization and its longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, accusing them of conducting a yearslong scheme to evade taxes by compensating employees with special benefits such as apartment rentals and luxury cars.
Understand the New York A.G.’s Trump Inquiry
An empire under scrutiny. The New York State attorney general is currently conducting a civil investigation into former president Donald Trump’s business practices. Here’s what to know:
Mr. Trump’s lawyers said that the criminal inquiry, which also involves investigators from Ms. James’s office, would improperly benefit if the attorney general’s office questioned Mr. Trump and his children in the civil inquiry.
They said that Ms. James would be able to obtain information valuable to the criminal investigation without having to provide the family members the immunity that they would receive were they to testify in front of a criminal grand jury. (Under New York law, witnesses who appear before the grand jury receive immunity from prosecution on the subject of their testimony.)
After maintaining a neutral posture during the hearing, Judge Engoron was blunt in his ruling. Addressing the argument that Ms. James was improperly using the civil investigation to bolster the criminal inquiry, he noted that the Trumps had not been asked to appear before a grand jury.
He was also unconvinced by the argument that Ms. James was politically biased, which Mr. Trump’s lawyers advanced by citing statements that the attorney general had made while campaigning, including promising to “use every area of the law to investigate” Mr. Trump, who was then still in office.
Judge Engoron said that Ms. James had the right to say whatever she liked about Mr. Trump while running for office and that there was a clear basis for her investigation.
Toward the end of his decision, the judge restated the facts, saying that Ms. James had uncovered “copious evidence of possible financial fraud” and was looking to build upon that evidence by questioning the Trump family members.
“She has the clear right to do so,” he wrote.
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