A new analysis is explaining how former President Donald Trump may have lied about safety concerns to avoid appearing at the New York attorney general’s office weeks ago.
In a new report, The Daily Beast’s Jose Pagilery breaks down Trump’s claims while also explaining why the former president’s arguments may be nothing more than an excuse to delay court proceedings.
Days prior to Trump’s deposition, which was scheduled for August 10, the former president’s legal team submitted documents detailing his safety concerns about the attorney general’s office.
Pagilery noted that Trump’s legal team, according to inside sources, “asked that the contentious interview at the AG’s office be relocated to a more comfortable, convenient spot for the former president: Trump Tower.”
“In correspondence that was filed in secret, Trump’s legal team notified state investigators that the Secret Service was opposed to transporting him to the AG’s office in Manhattan’s Financial District, both sources said,” Pagilery wrote. “The letter cited some sort of safety concern related to having the former president at the 60-story skyscraper at 28 Liberty Street—which is located just across the street from a Trump-owned building.”
Details about the correspondence have not been made public because it does not appear in the court docket. Pagilery went on to offer more insight into what he describes as Trump’s “last-ditch effort.”
“Trump’s last-ditch effort failed and the interview went on as planned, where Trump faced off with AG Letitia James herself. He refused to answer questions by pleading the Fifth hundreds of times, strengthening the AG’s civil case that the Trump Organization was routinely involved in business fraud and dodging taxes and lying about the value of numerous properties across the country.”
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Digging a bit deeper to verify the validity of Trump’s claims, The Beast reached out to the Secret Service. Per the news outlet, the government agency was reportedly “caught by surprise by the allegations and had not been made aware of any perceived security threat—or court filings detailing them.”
In a statement to The Beast, Anthony Guglielmi, Secret Service chief of communications, indicated that “the Secret Service is ‘unaware of any security challenges at the Office of the New York State Attorney General.’”
Pagilery went on to sum up what he believes is the real reason for Trump’s concerns.
“The tactic ultimately failed, and Trump was forced to show up at the New York AG’s office,” he wrote. “But the seeming lie, that the Secret Service had reservations about the New York AG’s office that would necessitate investigators coming to Trump’s turf, is just another way Trump has used the presidential seal as a shield.”