Donald Trump Rips Letitia James as He Heads to Her Office to Testify

Donald Trump used to call New York City home. He still goes back, but only, it seems, under court order.

The former president is in Manhattan on Thursday to answer questions under oath in a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The $250 million suit accuses Trump and three of his children of “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations” related to their business in the state. The case is expected to go to trial later this year.

Trump was deposed in the case once before, last summer, before James brought the suit. He wasn’t interested in answering questions, invoking the Fifth Amendment hundreds of times. The former president doesn’t seem like he’s going to be in a mood to answer questions on Thursday, either.

“I will be heading downtown to meet with a Racist who leaked that I would be there at 9:30 A.M.” he wrote Thursday morning on Truth Social. “The leak makes it much more difficult for the Police and Secret Service to do their job. This civil case is ridiculous, just like all of the other Election Interference cases being brought against me. If I had a fair judge, this case would have never happened. MAGA!”

Trump has been trying desperately to cast the myriad investigations into his conduct as “election interference,” while labeling the Black people investigating him — including James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis — as racist. Trump was in Manhattan last week to plead not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsification of business records brought by Bragg in a historic indictment of the former president. Willis is investigating whether Trump meddled in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.

The investigation that could pose the biggest threat to Trump, however, may be the Justice Department’s probe into his handling of sensitive material upon leaving the White House, which is being overseen by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that investigators are now asking witnesses whether Trump showed off a map with classified information to people who shouldn’t have seen it. Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland last fall, is also investigating the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

There’s also the defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, who has accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s. Trump has repeatedly tried to get the case thrown out, to no avail, and his lawyers are now arguing the April 25 trial should be pushed back due to the chaotic media coverage surrounding Trump’s other legal woes. Carroll’s lawyers don’t agree, to say the least. “The Constitution does not excuse Trump from standing trial on a sexual assault claim just because the national media has once again revisited longstanding reports about his assorted extra-marital affairs,” one of them, Robert Kaplan, wrote on Wednesday.