 Today, Donald Trump was deposed by New York Attorney General Tish James and, predictably, he decided to plead the fifth. As Politico explains, former President Donald Trump declined to answer questions on Wednesday during a deposition with the office of New York Attorney General Tish James asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Trump, who has long accused James of conducting a politically motivated probe into his family's real estate business, said in a statement Wednesday that he had quote, absolutely no choice but to take the fifth during his under oath interview with the Attorney General's office. James is leading an investigation into Trump organization business practices examining allegations that the former President's company misstated asset values on financial documents. So he had absolutely no choice but to plead the fifth. Now look, that is his right as an American citizen, but let me remind you what he has said repeatedly about individuals who plead the fifth. So there you have it. People who plead the fifth are guilty. Donald Trump. I mean, look, the hypocrisy here with Republicans, it's expected. It's like a feature of this new brand of Republicanism spawned by Donald Trump. But shockingly, he actually did address the hypocrisy. He explained why he changed his opinion on this particular issue, quote, I once asked if you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment? Now I know the answer to that question. Trump said in a statement released by his post presidential office, when your family, your company and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded politically motivated witch hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors and the fake news media. You have no choice. I mean, you do have a choice, but he views this as a non choice because we all know that in the event he were to actually speak, he would probably self incriminate. Hence the reason for the Fifth Amendment in the first place. Now we'll get to more details about this particular investigation. But when his children, Trump Jr. and Ivanka were deposed, they did not plead the Fifth. And it's because as dumb as they are, especially Trump Jr. I think that they're more competent with the way that they speak. Whereas if Donald Trump were able to talk, or if he did talk, if his lawyers allowed him to do that, I'm assuming they instructed him to plead the Fifth, but either way of Trump were actually to speak during his deposition. Everyone knows. Blab on to a point where he'd end up self incriminating. You give him enough rope and he'll hang himself with it. So you know, if I were Trump's attorney, I would absolutely be instructing him to plead the Fifth. Now, oddly enough about this event was that he was kind of semi live tweeting his experience before he was supposed. So he made this quote, tweet on truth social at the very nice plush, beautiful and expensive AG's office. Nice working conditions as people are being murdered all over New York. I should be doing this in Trump's voice. And she spends her time and effort on trying to quote, get Trump. Yes, because people in that office don't deserve good working conditions unless there's zero murders in New York. Now he's tried to claim that this is a political witch hunt, but he says the same thing about every single investigation. And he's, you know, he's been under investigation for a long time. And this is a multitude of different investigations, not just this one. And he has the same playbook. So I mean, this is a story of the boy who cried wolf. If everything is a witch hunt, then effectively nothing is a witch hunt because you've said the same thing time and again. And now nobody believes you. But more important details about this particular case and other ones related to his potential fraud. The former president is also the subject of a parallel criminal investigation being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney's office into whether he fraudulently inflated property values. A state appeals court ruled in May that Trump and his two eldest children would have to sit for depositions under oath in the attorney general's probe, denying an appeal from Trump to overturn a ruling enforcing the subpoenas. The former president's meeting on Wednesday came just days after the attorney general's office questioned Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, both of whom did not plead the fifth. James's office has said that it uncovered significant evidence that the Trump organization fraudulently valued multiple assets and misrepresented them to mislead financial institutions. But Trump has denied any wrongdoing and claimed the investigation is politically motivated. The former president's deposition on Wednesday could represent a final stage of James's civil investigation after which she could file a lawsuit against Trump or negotiate a settlement with Trump's lawyers to obtain a quicker financial payout. So if I had to guess, she probably would try to pursue him with a civil suit or get some sort of a payout. I don't think that she's just going to let this go. But if you were wondering whether or not this would lead to him being jailed, no, this is not a criminal suit. Now, when it comes to whether or not we should believe her when she says that she found significant evidence of criminality with regard to potential tax fraud, I mean, does anyone doubt her at this point? There was a 2018 article published in The New York Times that comprehensively detailed the extent of his tax dodging ways. And it was mind blowing. And we may soon learn even more following a federal appeals court approval of a request by the House Ways and Means Committee to force the IRS to hand over Trump's tax returns. And I'm not a betting man, usually. But if I had to bet, I bet that the reason why he doesn't want his tax returns released is because he's hiding potential evidence of criminality, evidence that he is misstating the property value. So, you know, I think that probably Tish James, she's going to pursue this to the very end and I applaud her for that. But this is not a criminal suit. But that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't other investigations that could lead to Trump being criminally charged. For example, just three weeks ago, we learned that all 16 of Trump's fake electors are the targets of a criminal inquiry by Atlanta prosecutors. And Trump himself could be in trouble as well. And that's on top of the January 6th committee's investigation, along with the DOJ's investigation and the FBI raid that they conducted. Now, Trump is not releasing the warrant, which I find very interesting, because again, he claims witch hunt. It's all a witch hunt, right? It's politically motivated, except release the warrant and we can determine for ourselves whether or not it's a witch hunt. But the only reason why you would withhold the warrant from the public, the only reason why you wouldn't release your tax returns is because there is potential evidence of criminal wrongdoing. It's another reason to plead the fifth. If you ask Donald Trump in 2016, 2017 circa. So, yeah, that's where we're at. He pled the fifth, not necessarily surprising. This could result in civil charges. It won't result in him going to jail. But that doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't other instances or other investigations, I should say, where Trump could be legally culpable in a criminal case. But still keep in mind that this is a former president and a very powerful elite. So even if there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing, I mean, you're charging a former president. Not a lot of people have the gumption to do something like that. So even if the evidence is there, even if there's smoke, because there's a fire, it's a matter of whether or not officials in the US will be brave enough to actually hold him accountable. And that includes Merrick Garland. So, yeah, we'll just have to wait and see. But it's not going to get any easier for Donald Trump because there's an abundance of evidence that he committed a multitude of crimes. So whether it's criminal or civil, he's bound to be held accountable in some way, but this won't be the first time as he was previously sued for Trump University and the fraud that that was. So this is just like his life, because when you're that big of a criminal, that big of a fraud, of course, it's bound to catch up with you. You are bound to face at least some accountability, even if it might not necessarily be comparatively that bad. But I mean, if he were just a regular person, if you were a pleb, oh, he'd be in prison long ago. Everyone knows that that's the case. So don't kid yourself about that.