Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

The right’s enthusiasm for hyperbole is doing Trump no legal favors

Middle East conflict live updates: IDF takes control of Rafah border crossing; Biden denounces Hamas, antisemitism in address

Indiana primary election 2024: Latest updates on governor, House races

The next global crisis could come from the sun. We should prepare now.

Lily James shows off train at Met Gala

Under Putin, a militarized new Russia rises to challenge U.S. and the West 

Boeing Starliner space launch delayed at least until Friday

Substack courts TikTokers with new ‘creators’ program

Postal worker finds WWII-era letters, drives 5 hours to deliver them

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Book excerpt: The admiral who had a mental breakdown over Fat Leonard

A guide to the 2024 Alexandria Democratic primary election 

The crisis Biden and Trump don’t want to deal with

Russia is using toxic chemical weapons, wrecking a ban it helped create

Miss Manners: Greeting a non-parent on Mother’s or Father’s Day 

Ask Amy: I’ve lied about being a Vietnam War veteran for 50 years

Carolyn Hax: Husband admits to one-night stand, wants spouse to ‘let it go’

Baseball can crush rookies. Why hasn’t it crushed Trey Lipscomb?

Eddie Rosario and Co. lead the Nats to an MLB-best 12th comeback win

CJ Abrams keeps getting better. It’s time to think about an extension.

Triumphal Putin is inaugurated for fifth term as Russian president 

Ukraine arrests two colonels in protective service in plot to kill Zelensky

France tries to shed its rude reputation ahead of the Olympics

Don’t be a jerk at the airport: A guide for headphones

The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip 

House Republicans hold a press conference in advance of tonightÕs State of the Union, on March 01 in Washington, DC.

See more coverage in your recommendations

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

The New York attorney general is investigating whether President Trump’s company misled lenders and taxing authorities by improperly inflating the value of his assets, according to a court filing on Monday.

The <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2020/attorney-general-james-takes-action-force-trump-organization-comply-ongoing" title="ag.ny.gov">filing from Attorney General Letitia James (D)</a> said that the Trump Organization has declined to hand over some documents that had been subpoenaed, and that the president’s son Eric has refused to be interviewed. James’s inquiry began 18 months ago, but James had not disclosed its focus or scope before Monday.

Eric Trump — now the day-to-day leader of his father’s company — agreed to an interview, and then canceled two days before, according to the filing. He has declined to set another date, citing “rights afforded to every individual under the Constitution” to justify refusing the subpoena for an interview, the attorney general said.

In addition, James said, Trump’s company has declined to produce any documentation to show it had paid the proper taxes when one of its lenders forgave more than $100 million of debt on the Trump hotel in Chicago.

The filing showed Trump’s company is now facing two advanced investigations into its finances in New York state — both focused on the years before he took office.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. (D) is separately looking into payoffs made in 2016 to women who alleged they had affairs with Trump — and Vance’s recent filings suggest that his probe may have expanded to cover other financial dealings at the company.

In Monday’s filing, James asked a New York state judge to order Eric Trump and the Trump Organization — which is based in New York — to comply with the subpoenas. James said this is a civil investigation, not a criminal one.

“The Trump Organization has stalled, withheld documents, and instructed witnesses, including Eric Trump, to refuse to answer questions under oath,” James wrote on Twitter. “That’s why we filed a motion to compel the Trump Organization to comply with our lawful subpoenas for documents and testimony.”

James was elected to her post in 2018 and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/incoming-new-york-attorney-general-plans-wide-ranging-investigations-trump-n946706" title="www.nbcnews.com">promised during her campaign to aggressively investigate Trump’s business and his administration</a>. On Monday, Eric Trump responded to the filing by accusing James of politically motivated harassment, saying she had targeted the Trump Organization to punish its owner, the president. He suggested it was no accident James made the disclosure during the Republican National Convention.

“How could I ever possibly trust the legitimacy of a subpoena sent by someone who publicly campaigned on taking down my father and using her office to harass our family. She has called his presidency ‘illegitimate,’ ” Eric Trump said in a statement. “This type of targeting and harassment violates every ethical guideline of a prosecutor. It’s wrong.”

The attorney general’s office noted that it submitted the filing to the court on Friday but that it was only made public on Monday.

President Trump still owns his businesses, though he says he has given day-to-day control over to his adult sons. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for James declined to comment about Eric Trump’s statement.

Neither James’s nor Vance’s investigation seems close to a conclusion, with just two months to go before Election Day. Indeed, James’s filing on Monday said her office has not determined if any laws were broken.

But both investigations could prove significant headaches for Trump’s company — and for Trump himself, if he loses in November and returns to private life. The filing submitted Monday showed James’s investigators had already probed deeply into a company that has long resisted outside scrutiny.

As described in that filing, James’s investigation seemed to focus on two broad questions.

One related to Trump’s hotel in Chicago and the taxes Trump paid — or should have paid — related to the hotel. Trump’s company owed $150 million on a loan to the property by a company called Fortress Credit. But in 2012, the filing said, Fortress let Trump’s company pay off the loan for just $48 million — effectively forgiving more than $100 million in debt.

In many cases, tax experts have said, companies are required to treat this kind of forgiven debt as income and pay income taxes on it. But, in the filing, James said the Trump Organization did not provide documents showing it had done so. James’s office said it “has been unable to confirm that these sums were recognized as taxable income.”

That was the first time any investigative authority had announced an interest in Trump’s forgiven Chicago loan.

The second broad category of inquiry described in James’s filing focused on whether Trump manipulated the value of his assets to impress lenders, or to lower his taxes.

The filing said James’s office had begun its investigation in March 2019, a few months after James took office. The trigger was congressional testimony by Trump’s former fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen.

Cohen said then that Trump had used documents called “Statements of Financial Condition” — self-reported summaries of his wealth and debts — to mislead both lenders and insurers.

James’s investigation seemed to have broadened beyond that, to ask if Trump had also inflated his assets when seeking conservation easements — agreements not to develop parcels of land he owns. Those easements provide income tax breaks: The more development value a parcel had, the more valuable the tax break.

James’s filing mentioned three Trump properties. One was an estate Trump owns in suburban New York called Seven Springs.

Last year, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-statements-of-financial-condition/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">The Washington Post reported</a> that, in Trump’s 2011 “Statement of Financial Condition,” Trump had inflated the potential value of that estate by saying it was “zoned for nine luxurious homes.” The future sale value of those home lots pushed the overall value of the property to $261 million, Trump’s statement said — far more than the $20 million assessed by local authorities.

But local officials said Trump had never completed the process to get zoning approval for the homes. The homes were never built.

In addition, James’s filing said Trump’s company had also obtained a conservation easement on the Seven Springs property in 2015, saying it had lost $21.1 million in value by giving up development rights.

Part of Trump’s Seven Springs estate is located in the town of Bedford, N.Y., in Westchester County. Joel Sachs, the town attorney in Bedford, said the New York attorney general’s office several months ago subpoenaed the town for all its records pertaining to Seven Springs and the Trump Organization’s attempt to develop the land.

Investigators from the attorney general’s office visited Bedford, met with town officials and reviewed documents, including the Trump Organization’s application forms for the proposed development. The attorney general’s office also subpoenaed a town official whom Sachs declined to identify. In early July, the official gave a deposition to investigators for six or seven hours, which Sachs attended, he said. This was the “most knowledgeable” official about the Trump property, he said.

“The town of Bedford cooperated,” Sachs said. “We just felt we had the obligation to comply with the attorney general’s investigation.”

The filing also says investigators were interested in valuations of Trump’s golf course in Los Angeles — where in 2014 Trump obtained a conservation easement that he said lowered the property value by $25 million, the filing said. And they indicated interest in Trump’s office building at 40 Wall Street in Manhattan, though they did not say why.

In the filing, James also asks a judge to compel two of the Trump Organization’s outside attorneys, as well as an engineer Trump hired, to produce documents relevant to the investigation. One of those three, attorney Sheri Dillon, declined to comment on Monday. The other two did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

This is not Trump’s first fight with a New York attorney general.

A previous attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/nyregion/deutsche-bank-trump.html" title="www.nytimes.com">sued Trump’s business in 2013</a> for allegedly defrauding students at his Trump University. Later, Schneiderman’s successor, Barbara Underwood, sued Trump in 2018 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-york-files-suit-against-president-trump-alleging-his-charity-engaged-in-illegal-conduct/2018/06/14/c3cbf71e-6fc9-11e8-bd50-b80389a4e569_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">for allegedly misusing donations to his nonprofit, the Donald J. Trump Foundation. </a>

In both of those cases, President Trump said they were based on politics and not the law. He called Schneiderman — an elected Democrat, like James — a “lightweight hack” doing the bidding of President Obama. He also accused <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lashes-out-at-new-york-ag-who-sued-his-foundation/2018/12/19/36f0ee16-039f-11e9-9122-82e98f91ee6f_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Underwood of playing politics</a>, though she was not a politician when she was appointed to her office after Schneiderman resigned.

In both cases, however, the suits ended with Trump’s company paying: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/spin-deride-attack-how-trumps-handling-of-trump-university-presaged-his-presidency/2020/07/24/7d3a327a-bfb8-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Trump’s university paid $25 million to settle a series of lawsuits</a>, including Schneiderman’s. And in the Trump Foundation case, the attorney general’s suit ended with a state judge <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-ordered-to-pay-2-million-to-charities-over-misuse-of-foundation-court-documents-say/2019/11/07/b8f804e2-018e-11ea-9518-1e76abc088b6_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">ordering Trump to pay $2 million in damages</a>.

Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.

Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, 2017.

Harvard University, B.A. in history, 2000.

David A. Fahrenthold is a reporter covering the Trump family and its business interests. He has been at The Washington Post since 2000, and previously covered Congress, the federal bureaucracy, the environment and the D.C. police.

David  Fahrenthold

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Jonathan O'Connell is a reporter focused on investigations. He has covered economic development, commercial real estate and President Donald Trump's business. He joined The Post in 2010.

Jonathan O'Connell

The Ben Bradlee Award for Courage in Journalism 2018

Fellow at Woodrow Wilson Center, spring 2013

Fellow at Shorenstein Center at Harvard University, fall 2012

Overseas Press Club Hal Boyle Award 2010

A Kingdom of Their Own: The Family Karzai and the Afghan Disaster 

Duke University, BA, 2000

Columbia University, MS in journalism, 2002

Columbia University, MA in international relations, 2003

Joshua Partlow is a reporter on the The Washington Post’s national desk. He has served previously as the bureau chief in Mexico City, Kabul, Rio de Janeiro, and as a correspondent in Baghdad. 

Josh Partlow

The Washington Post

Election 2020 Trump

Biden administration

The Fix

The 202s

Polling

Democracy in America

Politics

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/market_and_exchange

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/business_information

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economic_sector/financial_and_business_service

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economic_sector/financial_and_business_service/legal_service

iptc-media/politics

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/market_and_exchange/loan_market

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/court/judge

iptc-media/politics/government

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/court

iptc-media/society

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/law

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/prosecution

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economy/macro_economics/mortgage

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economic_sector/construction_and_property

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economy

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/business_information/business_finance

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/court/trial_(court)

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/market_and_exchange/loan_market/loans

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/crime

iptc-media/crime_law_and_justice/judiciary/court/trial_(court)/litigation

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economy/macro_economics

client-blocklists/Client List: Morgan Stanley KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Becton Dickinson KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/CLIENT LIST: Nomura KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Boeing KWs 2021- INCLUDE ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Exxon Mobil  - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Microsoft KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/GEICO KWs - INCLUDES ANY_4.26.21

client-blocklists/Client List: T. Rowe Price KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/T. Rowe Price KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/B2_Affluent_legacyaux_eqw

advertising/B2_Agriculture/Food Production_legacyaux_PI3

client-blocklists/HBO KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: ExxonMobil 03312021 KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Ford/Lincoln KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Bank of America KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/WaPo: Combined Disaster Keyword List - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Business_legacyaux_hws

advertising/B2_Congressional Elections_legacyaux_r48

client-blocklists/Client List: Eli Lily KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/B2_Culture and Tradition_legacyaux_kfx

client-blocklists/Client List: IBM KWs ALTERNATE Watson - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/B2_Design Engineering_legacyaux_i6w

advertising/B2_Entrepreneurship_legacyaux_sqb

client-blocklists/Client List: Purina KWs - INCLUDES ANY

advertising/Citrix Mindfulness

advertising/B2_Finance_legacyaux_jfq

advertising/B2_Government & Policy_legacyaux_mza

advertising/B2_Health and Beauty_legacyaux_3fv

advertising/Racing and Nascar Enthusiasts

client-blocklists/BP KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/ CLIENT LIST: AT&T KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

advertising/B2_Investing Gurus 2.12.15_legacyaux_14h

advertising/B2_Personal Finance_legacyaux_b8h

advertising/B2_Politically Active - DO NOT REMOVE_legacyaux_lmp

advertising/B2_Politics_legacyaux_8f3

advertising/B2_Positive News_legacyaux_hlt

advertising/B2_Republican Conventions_legacyaux_h2r

advertising/B2_Retirement Planners 2.12.15_legacyaux_k9i

advertising/B2_Society_legacyaux_0cz

advertising/B2_Young Professional / International Businessman_legacyaux_r5x

client-blocklists/Client List: GEICO KWs

client-blocklists/Client List: KPMG KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Verizon KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Novo Nordisk KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Siemens KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Cisco KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: AT&T ALT KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Mercedes KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/FX Excludes All Disney

client-blocklists/Client List: Citibank KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Boeing KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Inpixon KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Aetna KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Navy Federal Credit Union NFCU KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY - 12.23.20

client-blocklists/Client List: Google KWs - INCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Philip Morris KWs - INCLUDES ANY 

client-blocklists/Dupixent neg kws - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Capital One KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY - 1.4.21

client-blocklists/Bank of America Merrill Lynch KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/CME KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: IBM KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Google PG KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Chase KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Office Depot KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: ETrade KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

prism://prism.query/site-articles-only,/politics&limit=20

Post Politics from The Washington Post is the source for political news headlines, in-depth politics coverage and political opinion, plus breaking news on the biden administration and White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, elections and more.

prism://prism.query/site,/politics/the-fix&limit=6