NEW YORK -- The New York Attorney General Letitia Jam recently subpoenaed Donald Trump and his two oldest children to testify in connection with an ongoing civil probe into Trump's family's business practices. A court filing was made public Monday.
Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. were subpoenaed in connection with an investigation into the "valuation of properties owned or controlled by Trump and his company the Trump Organization," the filing stated.
Lawyers for James and Trump left messages seeking comment.
Although the attorney general attempted to obtain testimony from the former President was reported in December and Monday's court filing was the first public disclosure that investigators also sought information from Ivanka Trump Jr.
The Trumps will file court papers to stop the subpoenas. This is a similar legal battle to that which took place last year when James' office subpoenaed another Trump child.
Trump sued James last month to stop the investigation. He did so after his wife requested that he take a Jan. 7 deposition. Trump filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the probe violated his constitutional rights. This was in an "thinly-veiled attempt to publicly malign Trump" and his associates.
Monday's court filing was the first public acknowledgment by the attorney general that it had previously subpoenaed Trump.
James, a Democrat has spent over two years investigating whether Trump Organization misled tax officials or banks about the assets' value -- either inflating them for favorable terms or minimising them for tax savings.
One of Trump's sons was interviewed by James' investigators as part of the probe. James' office took Trump's younger son to court to obtain a subpoena. A judge ordered him to testify, after his lawyers cancelled a scheduled deposition.
James' office was involved in both the criminal and civil investigations. After a long-running battle that went twice to the U.S. Supreme Court, Cyrus Vance Jr. was granted access to the tax records of the long-time real estate mogul.
Vance convened another grand jury to hear evidence before deciding whether to pursue additional indictments. This led to tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization's long-serving CFO Allen Weisselberg in July.
Weisselberg has pleaded not guilty in the absence of evidence that he and his company evaded taxes on lucrative fringe benefit payments paid to executives.
These investigations are at most partially related to claims made by Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, that Trump has a history of misrepresenting assets' value.
James' office issued subpoenas for local governments to conduct a civil probe to obtain records regarding Trump's North Manhattan estate, Seven Springs and the tax benefit Trump received by donating land to a conservation trust. Vance issued subpoenas for many of these records later.
James' office also has been looking into similar issues regarding a Trump office building, Chicago hotel and Los Angeles golf course. Her office won a number of court rulings that forced Trump's company, and the law firm it hired, to turn over vast amounts of records.
