Donald Trump returns to New York 10 days after being indicted to testify in a tax fraud case

The motorcade in which Donald Trump travels arrives this Thursday at the headquarters of the New York prosecutor's office, in Manhattan.SPENCER PLATT (Getty Images via AFP)

Former US President Donald Trump returned to New York on Thursday to testify in a civil trial for irregularities in his company, a week after his criminal charges in another case.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump and three of his children in September and the Republican was due to testify again today as a witness in a case that threatens the fate of his family.

James claims 250 million dollars (226 million euros) from the Trump Organization, the name of the family company, for "[unpaid] taxes and tax fraud in the valuation of the group's assets."

The investigators maintain that the firm inflated the value of the properties to obtain tax benefits and credits in advantageous conditions.

“I will go to downtown [New York] to meet with a racist who leaked that I would be there at 9:30 in the morning” this Thursday, Trump wrote the day before about the prosecutor, who is African-American, as well as a Democrat.

The hearing took place behind closed doors at the offices of the Prosecutor's Office, in Lower Manhattan, where the police deployed additional security measures, with a battery of fences and traffic restrictions to facilitate the arrival of the imposing caravan of vehicles that moved to the tycoon, although the appointment did not arouse as much expectation as last week.

It is the second time that Trump has come face to face with whom he accuses of a political "witch hunt".

In August, he appeared under oath for the same case before James, but refused to testify so as not to incriminate himself, invoking the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution. The New York court has already set the trial for next October 2 .

is scheduled to take place

, for which the former president was indicted last week by the Manhattan Prosecutor's Office.

The legal front is blurred for the Republican, who aspires to return to the White House in 2024 and to whom the impeachment, the first against a former US president, seems to have instilled energy both in the polls and in fundraising, given that the formal accusation does not prevent him from running in the elections.

In addition to the two cases open in New York, Trump faces two potentially serious cases, that of the

, confidential documents that he took from the White House and were found in his Florida mansion, and that of his attempted electoral punch in 2020 in the State of Georgia.

In addition, he is the subject of separate investigations for his role in the assault on the Capitol by a horde of his followers.

A theoretically minor cause, the complaint from a writer who accuses him of having raped her in 1996, is these days entangled in appeals.

The tycoon has described the case investigated by prosecutor James as "ridiculous [...] like all the other cases of electoral interference in which I am involved", he said, alluding to the rest of the open investigations.

Unlike the case of the Manhattan Prosecutor's Office, of a criminal nature, that of the New York Prosecutor's Office is of a civil nature, and accuses the Republican billionaire and three of his eldest children of "deliberately" manipulating the valuations of the group's assets. ―including golf clubs, luxury hotels and residential buildings in various countries, from the UK to India― to get better loans from banks or pay less tax.

In December, two affiliated companies of the Trump Organization were found guilty in a New York court of various charges of tax evasion,

James' lawsuit concerns Trump, his children Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump - who also refused to respond under the Fifth Amendment last year - and Ivanka Trump, as well as senior executives of the organization.

In addition to the $250 million fine, the lawsuit contemplates a ban on the Trumps from doing business in the state, which would be a setback for the magnate's interests in the succulent New York real estate market.

Although they date back to the end of the last decade and are in the hands of Democratic prosecutors - the reason that, for Trump, supports his theory that it is a political persecution - the cases that prosecutor James handles are independent of the criminal case. in which Donald Trump was indicted last week on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to three payments to cover up alleged extramarital affairs before the 2016 election that brought him to the presidency.

The most important was the $130,000 bribe to the porn actress Stormy Daniels, whose relationship he has always denied.

Trump pleaded "not guilty."

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