President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump will be compelled to testify under oath as part of New York state’s civil investigation into the 45th president’s business practices and “misvaluation of assets.”  

The investigation is spearheaded by the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, who has asserted that her office discovered “significant evidence of fraud” even though no charges have yet been filed against Mr. Trump or his family. Ms. James had previously vowed to “fight back” against “this illegitimate president.”  

The remarkable sight of a president raising his right hand not to take the oath of office but to testify under oath conjured echoes of a trial from another era that also involved politics and the courtroom: the Iran Contra scandal and its legal fallout. 

Congress passed the Boland Amendment in 1984, which prohibited United States Intelligence from providing military assistance to the rebel Contras in Nicaragua. In 1985 Oliver North, working for National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, began providing such assistance, which was clandestinely continued under John Poindexter, Mr. McFarlane’s successor. 

Messrs. McFarlane and Poindexter both misled Congress about the existence of such assistance, as well as a plan to facilitate the  shipment of missiles to Iran from Israel, which in turn prompted a congressional investigation. Mr. Poindexter was promised immunity for his participation in the Iran and Contra affairs in exchange for his testimony.

Subsequently, an independent counsel brought a five-count indictment against Mr. Poindexter, who was charged along with Mr. North. A trial court convicted Mr. Poindexter on all five counts. Mr. North was separately convicted on three. 

Mr. Poindexter appealed, claiming that the convictions unlawfully relied on his immunized testimony and violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, which promises that no one “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”

In a two-to-one decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg, the circuit riders held that because the independent counsel “failed to show that Poindexter’s immunized testimony was not used against him at trial, we reverse the convictions on all counts.” The convictions against Mr. North were likewise reversed.  

While Mr. Trump has not been promised immunity, he will likely claim that his Fifth Amendment right would be imperiled by this civil testimony. Another one of Mr. Trump’s children, Eric Trump, previously testified in this case. According to court filings. he invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege “about 500 times.”   

Mr. Trump’s testimony was assured when a four-judge appellate panel unanimously  upheld a trial judge’s holding from February that required the Trumps to comply with subpoenas to the same effect. Mr. Trump has not yet signaled whether he intends to appeal the ruling to New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.  

The appeal rested on the possibility that the Trumps’ testimony in the civil case could in turn be used to prosecute them in a parallel criminal case, which the Trump team argued was a violation of the constitutional protection against self-incrimination. 

The appellate court rejected that line of reasoning, holding that “the existence of a criminal investigation does not preclude civil discovery of related facts, at which a party may exercise the privilege against self-incrimination.”

Separately, Mr. Trump is facing a contempt order in the same case. To resolve that issue, he paid a $110,000 fine for failing to turn over records. However, Ms. James has insisted that the order only be lifted after a longtime assistant provides answers to a battery of questions.  

Mr. Trump’s legal team has asserted that Ms. James’s investigation is politically motivated, and that it is an attempt to harvest testimony for the criminal probe being led by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. That inquiry has entered uncertain territory with the resignation of top prosecutors and an expired grand jury.