WASHINGTON (Reuters) -New York's attorney general is seeking to question former U.S. President Donald Trump under oath as part of the state's civil fraud investigation of his namesake business, the Washington Post said on Thursday.
The attorney general, Letitia James, wants Trump to sit for a Jan. 7 deposition as she probes whether the Trump Organization manipulated the valuations of its real estate properties, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Representatives for Trump and his company could not immediately be reached for comment. James' office declined to comment.
The civil probe is related to but separate from a more-than three-year criminal probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance of the Trump Organization's business practices, which James joined in May.
In July, the company and longtime Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in what a prosecutor in Vance's office called a "sweeping and audacious" 15-year tax fraud.
Trump, a Republican, has not been charged with crimes or accused of wrongdoing, and has called the probes politically motivated.
Vance and James are Democrats, and the attorney general is running to become New York's governor. Vance leaves office at the end of the year following 12 years as district attorney.
The civil probe includes a focus on whether the Trump Organization overstated the value of some real estate assets to obtain loans and tax benefits.
James' probe began after Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, told Congress the former president also deflated other asset values to reduce real estate taxes.
James is looking at whether widespread fraud "permeated the Trump Organization," the Post said, citing an unidentified source.
Last year, Trump's son Eric, a longtime Trump Organization executive, was questioned in James' probe after initially resisting her subpoena.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Mark Heinrich and Dan Grebler)
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