Trump asks appeals court to delay his testimony in probe by New York's attorney general while calling out Letitia James for leading an 'impermissible selective prosecution'

• Trump's lawyers asked a state appellate court Monday to delay testimony to the NY attorney general.
• Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., are also seeking to delay their testimony.

Lawyers for Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., on Monday formally asked to delay their court-ordered testimony before New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The three Trumps had been ordered by a lower court to comply with James' subpoenas and testify before her investigators by March 10; Monday's filing asks the state Supreme Court's Appellate Division to delay that testimony while they file a full appeal.

The filing asks the appellate court to find that the Trumps are the targets of "impermissible selective prosecution" by James, who has used strong language in warning publicly that she is turning the full strength of her office on a probe of the former president's business.

The filing, signed by Trump family lawyer Alan S. Futerfas, also says that it is improper for James' office to demand that the Trumps sit for depositions in her civil probe when her office is also working in tandem with the Manhattan DA's criminal probe.

Both arguments — the selective prosecution claim and the claim that whatever the Trumps say in deposition would be used against them in a criminal probe — had been made without success in a contentious February 17 hearing before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron.

In seeking to have Engoron's decision reversed, and James' subpoenas be quashed, the lawyers are asking the appeals court to find that "New York's constitutional and statutory grand jury protections can be easily avoided, indeed eviscerated, if the same agency involved in the criminal investigation simply opens a 'civil' investigation into the very same matters," according to the filing.

Lawyers for Trump and a spokesperson for the AG's office did not immediately comment on the filing.

But James had promised on Friday that her investigation will not be slowed by the Trumps' efforts to delay or evade her subpoenas.

"While they have the right to seek a delay, they cannot deter us from following the facts and the law wherever they may lead," she wrote in a statement.

"Make no mistake: My office will continue to pursue this case without fear or favor because no one is above the law."