In the civil trial for financial fraud against Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka distanced herself from her specific role in the family real estate empire and at her father’s side and swore under oath that she did not remember favorable loan negotiations with banks in the 2010s.
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Ivanka Trump is not facing civil charges in the case and left the Trump Organization holding company in 2017 to advise her father as he entered the White House, where he plans to return on January 20, 2025.
AFP
As Ivanka Trump arrived at the Manhattan courthouse smiling and relaxed, dressed in a black outfit over a white T-shirt, she was sworn in before the New York State Supreme Court, where his brothers Don Jr and Eric Trump and the former President of the United States have already testified last week and Monday.
When the prosecutor’s representative called her to speak, Judge Arthur Engoron, who has been presiding over the case since October 2, jokingly said: “Who is she?”
In a very quiet and barely audible voice, Ivanka Trump continued to claim that she did not “remember” in detail the negotiations with banks over loan terms, as evidenced by the emails she exchanged with banks in 2011 and 2016 and that the Prosecutor introduced her.
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“I do not remember”
“As I sit here today, I cannot remember these conditions from 2011,” she said.
Also when asked about her possible role at her father’s side in the preparation of his “personal financial statements,” Ivanka Trump replied: “There were no things that I was aware of (…) I was not involved in his personal financial statements.”
Before the hearing, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is suing Trump’s father and son, accused “Ivanka Trump of arranging and negotiating advantageous loans based on fraudulent financial reports prior to her departure from the Trump Organization.”
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“She will try to distance herself from the company, but unfortunately the facts show that she was very involved,” insisted this senior judge, elected by the Democratic Party, who ordered $ 250 million in compensation from the Trump clan demands.
Donald Trump, who defended himself vigorously in court on Monday, is accused along with his sons and employees of the Trump Organization of fraudulently inflating the value of their assets – a variety of companies that manage skyscrapers, hotels and luxury residences or golf courses available all over the world – to get better bank loans and more favorable insurance conditions.
Before the trial, Judge Engoron ruled in a damning order at the end of September that the New York Attorney General’s Office had presented “conclusive evidence that the defendants overstated the assets” of the “812” group between 2014 and 2021. to) 2.2 billion dollars” depending on the year, as can be seen from the figures in Donald Trump’s annual financial statements.
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Due to “repeated fraud,” he had ordered the liquidation of the companies that managed these assets, such as the Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York or the neo-Gothic-style, soon-to-be century-old skyscraper at 40 Wall Street.
If this decision, which is currently pending appeal, is implemented, the Republican billionaire would lose control of part of his real estate empire.
This trial is just one of the first legal tests that awaits Donald Trump. In particular, he must appear before the federal judiciary in Washington starting in March 2024 for his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.