Ivanka Trump testifies in NYC civil fraud trial

Ivanka Trump was the latest member of the Trump family to testify in court in the ongoing civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump and her siblings regarding their business dealings in New York.

Ivanka Trump’s testimony on Wednesday contained similar accounts to those of her brothers, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.’s, and her father Donald Trump’s previous testimony regarding a lack of knowledge about the company’s financial documents, which are key to the legal case against them.

Unlike her two brothers and father, Ivanka Trump is not a defendant in the case.

Ivanka Trump worked as an executive in the Trump Organization until 2017 when she joined Donald Trump as senior adviser in the White Office when he became president. “She was originally a defendant in the lawsuit, but a New York appellate court dismissed claims against her in June, ruling that they were barred by the state’s statute of limitations,” per CBS News.

The lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James claims that Trump and his family enterprises have inflated real estate asset values to deceive lenders and insurers, and to enhance Trump’s image as a prosperous business mogul.

James is pursuing a minimum of $250 million in fines, along with limitations that would bar Trump and his adult children from conducting business in New York.

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During the trial, Ivanka Trump was presented with a 2011 email where she recognized that Deutsche Bank’s condition for her father to sustain a minimum net worth of $3 billion posed an issue, yet she still urged company executives to greenlight it.

“She remembers a number of things about a 2011 meeting to pitch her family company’s plan to redevelop a historic post office into a Washington, D.C., hotel,” The Associated Press said. “She recalls discussion of the overall vision and the company’s experience, her father talking up his renovation of New York’s famous Plaza Hotel.”

Although Donald Trump had claimed a net worth of $4.3 billion that year, Ivanka Trump and Deutsche Bank agreed to settle her father’s net worth at $2.5 billion to meet the requirement.

Regarding her decisions, Ivanka Trump wrote to a Trump Organization lawyer, “We wanted to get a great rate and the only way to get proceeds/term and principal where we want them is to guarantee the deal,” per Reuters.

During her interrogation, she couldn't recall ever supplying valuation details for the assets in the statements or examining them before their completion. She claimed seeing “a few documents and correspondence that referenced financial statements, but that was not something I was involved in.”

She added, “Those were not things that I was privy to,” regarding information about the statements’ mention of certain apartments she had the option to purchase in a Trump-owned property on Park Avenue in New York.

ames told reporters prior to Ivanka Trump’s testimony that Ivanka was connected to fraud within the family company. “She benefitted from it personally,” James said. “Ms. Trump will do all that she can to separate herself from this corporation, but she is inextricably tied to the Trump Organization and to these properties that she helped secure financing for. You cannot hide from the truth,” USA Today reported.

Donald Trump faces legal challenges in five separate criminal proceedings, with two from his efforts to reverse Democrat Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.