Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump looks on on the day he addresses auto workers as he skips the second GOP debate, in Clinton Township, Michigan, September 27, 2023.
Rebecca Cook | Reuters
The New York civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump and his company is back on track to start Monday after a state appeals court lifted a temporary stay of the case.
The order Thursday came hours after New York Attorney General Letitia James said she plans to call Trump and three of his adult children as witnesses in the case.
Trump, the Trump Organization and his two adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, are accused by James of misstating the values of multiple real estate assets.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron on Tuesday found the defendants liable for fraudulently inflating those properties and other assets.
The trial will address six other claims made by James in her lawsuit, which seeks around $250 million.
Trump in mid-September had filed a lawsuit to the appellate division of the Manhattan Supreme Court against James and Engoron, who will be presiding over the trial.
That lawsuit sought an interim stay while an appeals court weighed Trump’s argument that some claims in James’ case should be dismissed because they are barred by the statute of limitations.
That argument stemmed from a separate appeals court decision in June, which removed Ivanka Trump as a defendant in James’ case. The appeals court said in that ruling that the specific allegations involving her related to matters that fell outside a six-year statute of limitations.
But that ruling left it up to Engoron to decide “the full range of defendants” who may also be affected by the state’s statute of limitations.
Trump’s appeal claimed that James and Engoron “have refused to comply” with the June ruling.
But a panel of five appellate judges in Thursday’s order denied Trump’s motion for a stay of trial, and vacated a temporary stay that a single appellate judge had imposed.
Earlier Thursday, the attorney general and the defendants submitted separate witness lists for the trial.
James’ list shows she plans to call 28 witnesses, including Trump, Donald Trump Jr. , Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump.
Allen Weisselberg, the former Trump Organization chief financial officer who is one of several other defendants in the case, is also on James’ list, as is Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.