Attorney General Letitia James filed a petition in state trial court in New York City naming the Trump Organisation, an umbrella group for the president’s holdings, as a respondent along with other business entities.
The filing also named Eric Trump and Seven Springs, a New York estate owned by the Trump family.
The attorney general’s office is investigating whether the Trump Organisation and the president improperly inflated the value of assets to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.
Investigators are looking into whether the Trump Organisation and its agents improperly inflated the value of the Seven Springs north of the city.
In the court filings, the attorney general’s office wrote that “information regarding the valuation of Seven Springs is significant” to the office’s investigation.
The investigation was launched in March 2019 after President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress that the president had inflated the value of his assets to obtain more favourable terms for loans and insurance coverage.
Since then, the attorney general’s office has issued “a number of subpoenas and has taken testimony seeking information material to these matters”, the court filing said.
Investigators have not yet determined whether the law was broken.
