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Eric Trump must testify in a New York investigation into the family’s businesses before the November presidential election, a judge ruled Wednesday, rejecting lawyers’ claims that Trump’s “extreme travel schedule” on the campaign trail warranted a delay. State judge Arthur Engoron said that Donald Trump’s son must comply with a subpoena for his testimony no later than 7 October, adding that the investigation and the court are not “bound by the timelines of the national election”. Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, went to court to enforce the subpoena after Eric Trump’s lawyers abruptly canceled a July interview with investigators in a probe about whether the family’s company, the Trump Organization, lied about the value of its assets in order to get loans or tax benefits. Eric Trump, the company’s executive vice-president of development and acquisitions, was first served with the subpoena in May. In a court filing last week, his lawyers said he was willing to comply with the subpoena, but only after the 3 November election. Beside scheduling conflicts related to his father’s reelection campaign, they said they wanted “to avoid the use of his deposition attendance for political purposes”. At Wednesday’s hearing, Eric Trump’s lawyer Alan Futerfas said they were “happy for him to sit down and be deposed,” but that they needed more time before he testifies to review with him thousands of pages of documents that James’ office is seeking as part of the civil probe.“As the world knows, there’s an election going on in about four weeks in this country, maybe five weeks,” Futerfas argued. “Eric Trump is a vital and integral part of that, and he’s traveling just about seven days a week.”Matthew Colangelo, a lawyer for the attorney general’s office, countered that Eric Trump’s lawyers didn’t have a legal basis to seek a delay and were doing so “simply on the grounds of personal inconvenience to the witness.” He argued that the typical compliance deadline courts have found is reasonable is five days. Eric Trump’s lawyers had proposed four dates for him to testify, the earliest being 19 November, which they contended is just after James’ office is scheduled to interview other witnesses in the investigation. Eric Trump switched lawyers in mid-July, Futerfas said, contributing to the need for a delay