Trump’s Friday Deposition Delayed Due to Him Staying at Mar-a-Lago During Hurricane

Donald Trump’s deposition scheduled for Friday in a lawsuit brought against him and the Trump Organization has been rescheduled due to the former president riding out Hurricane Ian at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s lawyers and the lawyers for the class action plaintiffs — who sued Trump, his business, and his children — pointed fingers at each other in court filings on Wednesday, each blaming the other for why the deposition had been scheduled for Friday in person at the Florida resort home in the middle of a hurricane.

The magistrate judge overseeing the case decided to give the deposition the new deadline of Halloween.

HURRICANE FORCES DESANTIS AND BIDEN TO BURY THE HATCHET FOR NOW

Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph just after 3 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. State officials issued evacuation orders before the storm reached the state.

“At Mr. Trump’s insistence, and over Plaintiffs’ repeated requests and suggestions otherwise, the deposition is scheduled to take place at Mar-a-Lago,” plaintiff lawyer John Quinn wrote to the judge on Wednesday. “For the past several days, as we have monitored the developing situation around Hurricane Ian, we have raised with defense counsel the possibility of relocating the deposition.”

Quinn said he sent a Sunday email to Trump’s team “expressing our desire to keep the date, but raising concerns about last-minute cancelations and the potential inability of the court reporter and videographer to get safely to the deposition location, and suggesting that we move the deposition to Bedminster, New Jersey.”

Trump’s team did not respond to the email.

The plaintiff lawyer then told the judge an attorney for Trump called him Tuesday “to tell me that he and his colleague were boarding a flight to Palm Beach.” He added: “The last we heard is that Defendants insist the deposition go forward at Mar-a-Lago and on Friday but that we do not believe that is prudent or safe.”

TRUMP IN BUNKER MODE AS BIDEN TEAM INVOKES ‘NATION OF LAWS’ FOLLOWING RAID

“For the avoidance of any doubt, we are fully prepared to proceed with the deposition,” the plaintiff lawyer emphasized, adding that “this request is based solely on the undue risks presented by travel to Florida in the midst of Hurricane Ian.”

Trump’s legal team had a very different view on the timeline of the saga.

“Plaintiffs’ letter is riddled with disingenuous and misleading statements and fails to correctly report the events that transpired prior to Plaintiffs’ hasty request to cancel the longstanding deposition of President Trump,” Trump lawyer Clifford Robert retorted in court filings Wednesday. “We thought it absolutely absurd to travel from the New York area to West Palm Beach in the middle of a hurricane and would have been pleased to reschedule the deposition to another date, but Plaintiffs insisted that it proceed.”

Robert added that Trump “stands ready, willing, and able to proceed with his deposition on Friday” and requested the judge order the deposition to be conducted remotely by Zoom for safety reasons.

Quinn followed up with another court filing on Wednesday to contend that the “Defendants never suggested to us that they thought travel was ‘absolutely absurd’ under the circumstances, nor did they seek any rescheduling.” He opposed holding the deposition by Zoom.

Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave, who serves in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ended the bickering by extending the deposition deadline to Oct. 31.

“Under these conditions, whether the Deposition could occur on Friday, even remotely, is uncertain,” the judge ruled, saying the deadline would be moved “out of concern for the safety of the parties, court reporter, videographer, and any other required attendees of the Deposition.”

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The 2018 lawsuit contended that “central” to Trump’s “fraudulent scheme” was the multilevel marketing company ACN, with Trump allegedly receiving millions of dollars to promote ACN, including its videophone.

Trump’s lawyers pushed back in 2019 in an effort to dismiss the case, calling the complaint “fatally flawed.” They argued that the plaintiffs were “those who paid money to a business Mr. Trump does not own, has never owned, and over whose operations he has never exercised control” and that none of the plaintiffs are “alleged to have paid or lost money to the Defendants or to any Trump business.”

Trump, Ivanka, Eric, and Don Jr. have all agreed to be deposed at some point.