- Donald Trump will remain in contempt of court for stymying NY Attorney General Letitia James' probe of his business, a judge ruled.
- Trump is being fined $10K a day for failing to comply with the AG's subpoena for his personal business documents.
- The judge has repeatedly questioned why Trump hasn't sworn a statement detailing where he searched for documents before coming up empty.
Donald Trump will remain in contempt of court and must continue to pay a $10,000-a-day fine for failing to comply with a subpoena for his personal business documents, a Manhattan judge has ruled.
The decision came Friday in a hastily-called conference before the state Supreme Court judge who presides over the multiple subpoena battles between Trump and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The contempt order may remain in effect for at least a week, while an independent document search firm, Haystacks, completes a court-ordered review of Trump Organization documents.
Trump was found in contempt on Monday. The fines began to accumulate on Tuesday, when the judge, New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, issued his written contempt order.
The AG is probing whether Trump lied about the worth of his real estate assets in order to secure millions in loans and tax breaks.
At the hearing, Trump attorney Alina Habba insisted that Trump, through the Trump Organization, has already turned over all the documents he has.
"I don't want to do this dance back and forth," she said during the hour-long conference, which was held via video.
"I don't have more documents to give you. So you can fine us for ten months, but you're not going to get any more documents from Mr. Trump."
Lawyers for the AG's office countered Trump was issued a separate document subpoena in December because two years of Trump Organization searches for Trump's documents had "lots of problems," as one of the attorneys, Andrew Amer, said.
Judge Engoron ordered that Trump swear out a more detailed affidavit explaining where documents were searched for and why those searches came up empty.
"I want to know who did these searches," Engoron told Trump's lawyer.
"Where did they look? When did they look? What were they looking for."
As of Thursday, Trump owed James' office — as the aggrieved party in the contempt order — $30,000 in fines. That total will rise Friday to $40,000.
Trump will appeal the contempt order and fine, said Habba, who has already filed a notice of appeal in the case.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
