By Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum

NEW YORK — A New York state judge on Monday (25) held Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to comply with a subpoena from the state attorney general’s office, an extraordinary rebuke of the former president that came as that office suggested it might soon file a long-threatened lawsuit against him.

The judge, Arthur Engoron, ordered Trump to fully respond to the subpoena from the attorney general, Letitia James — who sought records from the former president about his family business — and assessed a fine of $10,000 per day until he satisfied the court’s requirements.

“Mr. Trump: I know you take your business seriously, and I take mine seriously,” said Engoron, before he held Trump in contempt and banged his gavel.

The contempt order amounted to a judicial condemnation of Trump’s signature tactic — stonewalling litigation and law enforcement investigations that he has derided as politically motivated, sometimes for years. That practice has helped him emerge from several inquiries largely unscathed, stymieing a legion of prosecutors, regulators and congressional investigators seeking to hold him to account.

But James has adopted her own aggressive legal strategy that undercut his long-effective approach, and she now appears poised to take the next step.

After more than three years, James’ office said Monday that it was nearing the culmination of its inquiry. During the hearing, a lawyer for James indicated that her office was preparing to file an action against Trump in the near future. That action is likely to be a lawsuit.

James, a Democrat, has previously said that the Trump Organization engaged in “fraudulent or misleading” practices but that she needed to collect additional records and testimony before deciding whether to sue Trump or his company.

After James subpoenaed Trump in December, attorneys for the former president argued that they conducted a thorough search for the records being sought by her investigators and found no new documents to provide. But Engoron said Monday that the attorneys had not provided sufficient detail about how they had conducted the search.

The contempt order could be short-lived. If Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, files a sworn statement detailing every step that was taken to locate potential documents, the judge might be satisfied, lawyers close to the case said. Habba said after the hearing ended that she intended to file such a statement.

Habba also said she intended to appeal the ruling.

“All documents responsive to the subpoena were produced to the attorney general months ago,” Habba said. “This does not even come close to meeting the standard on a motion for contempt.”

Trump has denied wrongdoing and lashed out at James, who is Black, calling her racist and accusing her of carrying out a politically motivated witch hunt against him.

At the hearing, Engoron objected to an earlier statement from Trump’s attorneys regarding their efforts to search for documents, calling it “woefully insufficient” and “boilerplate.”

It failed, he said, to outline “what, who, where, when and how any search was conducted.”

The ruling and Engoron’s comments represent a significant victory for James, whose office is conducting a civil investigation into whether Trump falsely inflated the value of his assets in annual financial statements.

Although James does not have the authority to file criminal charges, her civil inquiry is running parallel to a criminal investigation led by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who is examining some of the same conduct.

James’ office is participating in that separate investigation, which had appeared to be nearing an indictment of Trump earlier this year, before Bragg raised concerns about prosecutors’ ability to prove their case. Bragg, also a Democrat, inherited the inquiry from his predecessor after taking office Jan. 1.

The ruling Monday is a blow for Trump as he continues to battle the attorney general’s investigation. James has sought to question the former president and two of his children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as part of her inquiry, and attorneys for the Trump family are seeking to block the questioning. (In the fall of 2020, James questioned another of Trump’s children, Eric Trump.)

Engoron also ruled in favour of James as she sought additional documents from Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate firm that valued several of Trump’s properties while also serving as a broker for his company.

And in March, Engoron ruled in favour of James, ordering Trump and his children to be deposed. The Trumps have appealed that ruling.

Earlier this month, lawyers from James’ office said that Trump had declined to turn over documents in response to eight separate requests and called for him to be held in contempt and assessed a daily fine of $10,000 as long as he continued not to cooperate.

Trump’s attorneys had said the requests were “grossly overbroad” and did not “adequately” describe the requested materials. And Habba said in a document filed with the court last week that Trump did not have any of the documents that James had requested, and that any such documents, if they existed, would be in the possession of the Trump Organization.

She added that James had filed the motion for contempt without warning, “seemingly in an effort to turn this matter into a public spectacle.”

But lawyers for James’ office said in court Monday that, over the course of the investigation, they had received only 10 documents from Trump’s files and that Trump himself had not turned over any documents in response to the December subpoena addressed to him personally.

-New York Times