0 hi ali. trump world has now reportedly started speculating about who in the former president's orbit might have talked to the fbi and what it could mean for the we'll have more on that later but let's go back in time a little. to 2005. more than a decade before donald trump's first run for president, before he started flirting with racist birtherism conspiracies, back when he was just a real estate guy with a funny hair-do and a reality tv show, that year, the intrepid journalist tim o'brien the guy on the left, decided to start digging into the so-called trump empire. what he found then probably wouldn't shock anyone today, but back then it was a big deal. tim o'brien discovered that donald trump's much-lauded business success was actually far less impressive than trump had led anyone to believe. he found that donald trump had been significantly overstating his net worth by billions of dollars. that he wasn't remotely close to being a billionaire and so in 2005, tim o'brien wrote a book, exposing donald trump's prolific lies, and exaggerations about his wealth. donald trump reported by suing defamation tim o'brien a year later and that's how we got to see what it's like when donald trump testifies under oath. quoting from the transcript, attorney. mr. trump, have you always been completely truthfulal in your public statements about your net worth of properties. trump, i try. attorney, have you ever not been truthful? trump, my net worth fluctuates, and itt goes up and downed wit markets and with attitudes and with feelings even, my own feelings, but i try. attorney, let me just that a little. you said your net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings? trump, yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and hais can change rapidly fro day to day. attorney general, when you publicly state a net worth number, what do you base that number on? trump, i would say it's my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked, and as i say, it varies. after trump gave his "my net worth is actually just vibes testimony," the judge unsurprisely threw out that defamationhr case and it turns t the law didn't care about trump's feelings and years later trumptr ended up back in court this time as the defendant and being c sued by former students from his sham business school trump university. trump had claimed to have only hired the best of the best instructors forbe his fake scho, instructors who were hand-picked by donald trump himself, but once under oath, trump again found himself having to answer for his own boastful lies, this time about his great memory. >> do you recall saying you have one of the all-time great memories. >> i think that was it. >> do you stand by it. >> yeah, a great number. >> you can tell me whether this person is a student, live events instructor, or neither? johnny harris? >> mike duben. mike goes lin. >> sounds very familiar. the names sound familiar. >> darren lebeman. >> the name sounds familiar. but too many years. >> johnny. >> i don't know. >> too many years. i don't know. trump ended up settling that case, payingup the plaintiffs $ million. late last year, donald trump was once again deposed under oath, the firstnd time he had been deposed since leaving the white house, that deposition came in a case brought by protesters who said theyca were assaulted by trump's security atau a 2015 campaign rally, in that deposition, trump tried to justify telling his supporters to quote knock the crap out of protesters because of dangerous fruit. quote, they wereou going to thr fruit. we werere threatened. we had a threat. it's very dangerous stuff. you can get killed by those things. i wanted to have people be ready, because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit. and some fruit is a lot worse than tomatoes are bad by the way. but it's very dangerous. theyy. were going to hit, they were going to hit very hard. so dangerous. this is how it's gone in the past. every time donald trump had to testify under oath, and now today, donald trump once again found himself giving sworn testimony. this time, it was in the new york attorney general's investigation into whether trump knowingly lied about the values of hisut various properties in order to pay less in taxes. but this time, donald trump didn't cite his feelings or his great memory, or dangerous fruit. this time, he had a different strategy. just after donald trump arrived at theon new york attorney general's office at 9:00 a.m. this morning, donald trump released this statement, quote, i once asked, if you're innocent, why are you taking the fifthin amendment. now i know the answer to that question. when your family, your company, and all of the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated witch hunt supported byti lawyer, prosecutors and th fake news media, you have no choice. under the advice of my counsel, i declined to answer the questions under the rights and privileges afforded to every citizen under the united states constitution. translation, donald trump, the former president of the united states, twice impeached, pled the fifth. trump was in the attorney general's office for more than six hours today, according to the former president's attorney. during that time, donald trump only answered one question, and that was his name. he pled the fifth on every other question he was asked. now, the former president isn't the first trump to take this approach with the new york attorney general. back in 2020, trump's adult son eric pled the fifth nearly 500 times when questioned by the attorney general's office as part of this case, but trump's other adult children, ivanka and don jr. were questioned in the same case just last week and according to nbc news neither pled the fifth at any time in their questioning. trump's refusal to answer questions comes as theto investigationr into his busine appears to be zeroing in. according to the associated press,ac the new york attorney general's office is nearing the end of its investigation, and quote, could decide to bring a lawsuit seeking financial penalties against trump, or his company, or even a ban on them being involved in certain types of businesses. and also the matter of the ongoing criminal investigation into trump out of the manhattan district attorney's office which presumably would be able to use any of trump's testimony today in helping build its case against him as well. and then there are the various january 6th investigations continuing to probe trump's attempt to overturn the legitimate election, and now a justice department investigation into trump's removal of classified records for which the fed obtained a search warrant on monday. all of this seems to have scared donald trump into doings something hear has never had too before in his life. sit down and shut up. my nest guest is just the persos we want to speak to on a night like tonight. no one who has done more in depth reporting on the trump family and business practices. joining me is suzanne craig, investigative reporter for "the new york times," one of the lead reporters on the times pulitzer prize winning investigation into donald trump's finances, suzanne. good to see you this evening. thanks for being with us. >> good to see you. >> clearly, there were some calculation on the part of donald trump today to plead the fifth. why would it make sense for him to do that in this particular trial, which mostly affects his businesses, it's not a criminal trial? >> well, it definitely was a lot of thought that went into it from trump and his legal team's end. i think the reason why is you got the civil case, if that goes to trial, it can be used against him and not for him, and a lot of people have talked about that today, as people have been mulling over this case, but you also have to look that he's got this criminal case going on in new york. they're looking at him individually. and right now, that doesn't seem to be like it's percolating. that if he didn't take the fifth, and he said something in a deposition, it could be used against him and not for him, and also, he's heading to trial, you know, both the trump organization and his cfo, and that could also, you know, anything to be said in a deposition could land him, you know, potentially land in that as well. so i there was a lot of jeopard going into today, if he did decide not to take the fifth. it's just sort of, it felt like it is a bit like a basketball and it's thrown and you don't know quite where it wasan goingo land. >> it's unusual though for donald trump because there are always lawyers who say maybe say less l and you'll be okay. we have'l no idea where this ca is going to go. as you said, it could end up with a trial or a settlement. he paid a $25 million settlement in the trump university case. what do you make of what the likely outcome is and what influence it has on everything else it has been discussing? is this a stand alone case and he takes a settlement and goes to trial and it doesn't affect the january 6th investigation and the various other investigations into the trump orbit. >> it doesn't,ve no, the countr is very polarized on january 6th. we have sort of two things going on. there isin a lost political investigations, and then you've got all of the ones of his business. i'm very bad at predicting how things are going to go. i try to stay away from that. but if history is any barometer, you've got two settlements that he's had with the new york attorney general. h i really do feel like it could go that way. but i think he's just kicking the can down the road. if he settles, that could take a while. if it goes to trial, it could take even longer. and at least in the short term, anything that he has said in a deposition isn't going to get kicked down to new york, where there'sn a very immediate criminal threat going on. but if he was sort of like okay, i'll take the fifth today, whatever is going to happen is goings to happen, up in albany with the civil case, but at least i'm not going to get into any more trouble in that criminal case into my businesses in new york. >> and that's the area which you have great expertise and in court filings the attorney general's office has saidco tha trumpge may have quote improper obtained more than $5 million in federal tax benefits from misrepresenting his financial condition. does any of the evidence that is obtained for the new york investigation wind up in federal prosecutors' hands? >> definitely could.ef and i think that's what sort of this a s-all a richlkt it's interesting, you seehl that twof his children didn't take the fifth and with that, you don't know what their involvement was. there is a lot behind the but we don't know what the evidence is. . they decided not to, they had individual counsel. and it may be they didn't know a lot. and it could deposition amnesia going onep there, but with trum it is a very real threat. and he was looking at it i think from, you know, the proceeding that he's facing, in new york city that are criminal, that are very serious, you know, the civil case is serious, it will come to some sort of a conclusion, either a trial, or a settlement, i'm sure the settlement will be large, but i think that is sort of the factor that was paramount to what he was thinking about how to handle this. >> suzanne, thank you as always, we appreciate the depth of your reporting and your analysis. susanne craig, pulitzer prize investigative reporter for "the new york times." a further breakdown of what this all means for trump legal limitns let's turn to joyce van, former united states attorney for the districts of alabama and you heard the conversation with susanne why donald trump would invokesa the fifth amendment in this trial which is about his bid and something that we were hinding at and there's a lot that donald trump could say because he is a big talker that could be held against him and he may be worried about other cases in addition to this particular one in which he was deposed. >> we're looking at it from the perspective of trump's lawyers. this is the sort of client that you do not want to give free range to in a deposition. you want to do everything that you can do to constrain his testimony. so the statement that was issued today that you referenced at the top of the show, very lawyerly, it is set forth in language that is unlike that used by the former president. this notion that he can't talk because no matter what he says, the attorney general would find a way to use that against him. and you know, whether that's true or annot, this is a civil case about his business practices. it's unrelated in any way to january 6th. like every other person who is involved in our legal system, he has a right to decline to testimony if he believes that the words coming out of his mouth would tend to incriminate him. so entirely proper for him to do that. but obviously not without consequence. and susanne hints at a very interesting one. we don't know what his children testifiedat to last week. we don't know if their decision not to assert the fifth amendment means some sort of deal has been struck. there's no indication that there's any form of cooperation going on there in exchange for their truthful testimony. that's one possibility. as to the deposition amnesia, that is another. and they may not believe that their deposition testimony incriminated them distinguishing them from their father apparently. >> there is a lot of peoplegu w said the last few years, we wouldas love to have donald tru testify under oath anywhere for anything and he is such a talker andan likely to incriminate himself this. seems like the advice of counsel who has said you're a big talker and youwh could incriminate yourself because you talk so much,se and i'm surprised that other people, and other people might be that donald trump has the discipline to be able to do that, but is that him perhaps finally listening to good legal advice? >> it's hard to make that call, but what it suggests is that he appreciates the seriousness of the situation that he's in. his home has been searched. the january 6th committee hearings healed by the house were very serious. and that information and evidence that they uncovered came very close to him. and so while here we're talking about his business practices, he obviously is concerned that there'sob some risk and perhaps thatis risk in his mind is that the criminal investigation, that is currently on a little bit of a break in the manhattan d.a.'s office, that that could have come back to life, if he had engaged in sort of a full range of testimony in this deposition. >> let's talk about the don jr. and ivanka depositions recently where as you said they answered questions but they did not plead the fifth. and it could be, as you said, they might see things differently than donald trump sees it, but is it possible that the criminal exposure that's being investigated here doesn't applyst to them? in other words, are they fine with testifying because they don't think this has any carry-over effect to anything else? >> the way i read this case that letitia james, the new york attorney general is involved in, isto that it is a civil case looking at business practices and seeing whether or not trump organization lived up to new york law. if they ndidn't, the consequens could include civil fines. ore it could even include some limitations on their business. of tacourse, the new york attory general, her predecessor had shut down the function of trump's charity, because of blatantar violations of new yor law, and ultimately saying you can't do business here anymore. so that is sort of what is at stake here in the civil case that she's involved in, and those are very serious matters. certainly for trump, losing that business, would be a serious sort of a sanction. the possibilities with his children, it's tough to accept, because we don't know the focus of thebe questions or the inqui. it could be that they simply lacked knowledge about the fundamental allegations here, which involved inflating the value of property inappropriately in order to obtain certain kinds of financial advances. and perhaps, theync were able t say they weren't involved, they didn't see, they weren't overseeing the annual financial statements that were being ovma, and so it is possible that their responses were because, as you say, ali, that they didn't feel that they were at herisk. >> joyce, good to see you. i missed you. your state of alabama this weekend, and i didn't get a chance to see you but i'll have to make another trip. >> enjoyed the show though. thanks,ed ali. >> joyce vance, a former united states attorney for the northern district of d alabama. we have much more to get to tonight including new details on the fbi search inside mar-a-lago. and an interviewch with some ve special friends of ours. stay with us.nt it's dr. scholl's time. our insoles are designed with unique massaging gel waves, for all-day comfort and energy. find your relief in store or online.