Donald Trump answered questions for nearly seven hours during his second deposition in a legal battle with New York’s attorney-general over his company’s business practices, reversing an earlier decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment and remain silent.

The former US president met all day on Thursday (local time) with lawyers for Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Mr Trump last year.

Her lawsuit claims Mr Trump and his family misled banks and business associates by giving them false information about his net worth and the value of assets such as hotels and golf courses.

Shortly after Mr Trump entered the Manhattan skyscraper that houses Attorney General James’ offices, his attorney, Alina Habba, said he was “not only willing but also eager to testify.”

“He remains resolute in his stance that he has nothing to conceal, and he looks forward to educating the Attorney General about the immense success of his multibillion-dollar company,” Ms Habba said.

The lawsuit is unrelated to the felony criminal charges filed against Mr Trump by the Manhattan district attorney, which led last week to his historic arraignment, the first for a former president.

In a social media post Thursday morning, Mr Trump called the suit “ridiculous, just like all of the other election interference cases being brought against me.”

He raised a fist as he left his apartment at Trump Tower in the morning, arriving by motorcade at the attorney-general’s office about 9.40am. Mr Trump departed in the motorcade just before 6.15pm and did not stop to speak to the media.

Mr Trump previously met Attorney-General James’ lawyers in August, but refused to answer all but a few procedural questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights more than 400 times. At the time, Attorney-General James had not yet brought her lawsuit and it was unclear whether questions about the way Mr Trump valued his company would become the basis of a criminal case.

“Anyone in my position not taking the Fifth Amendment would be a fool, an absolute fool,” he said in that deposition, which was recorded on video and later released publicly.

Mr Trump predicted a “renegade” prosecutor would try to make a criminal case out of his answers, if he gave them.

“One statement or answer that is ever so slightly off, just ever so slightly, by accident, by mistake, such as it was a sunny, beautiful day, when actually it was slightly overcast, would be met by law enforcement at a level seldom seen in this country, because I’ve experienced it,” he said.

Circumstances since then have changed. The criminal charges brought by the Manhattan district attorney focused on how the company accounted internally for payments to a lawyer, Michael Cohen, for his work paying off people not to go public with stories about extramarital sexual encounters Mr Trump said never happened.

The lawsuit Attorney-General James brought is scheduled to go to trial in October. Video recordings of Mr Trump’s depositions could potentially be played at the trial, if the lawsuit is not settled.

Thursday’s deposition was conducted in private.

– AAP