Takeaways from Ivanka Trump’s testimony in the New York fraud trial.
Following an extraordinary eight days of witness evidence, which included Donald Trump and three of his adult children in the civil fraud trial brought by the New York attorney general’s office, Ivanka Trump made her much-awaited appearance on Wednesday.
After hearing from the eldest Trump daughter, who was questioned about her involvement in obtaining loans for the Trump Organisation and a penthouse apartment she rented from her father, the AG’s office decided to withdraw its case.
There were no explosions or irate outbursts during her presentation, which was not nearly as controversial as her father’s on Monday.
The case against Trump, his two adult sons, and his business involved testimony from twenty-five witnesses in total, with the Trump family making up the final four witnesses. Ivanka Trump is no longer a co-defendant in the attorney general’s lawsuit against Donald Trump, Eric Trump, and Donald Trump Jr., which seeks $250 million in damages and to prevent the former president from conducting business in the state.
Key conclusions from Ivanka Trump’s court appearance are as follows:
AG concentrated on negotiating loans with Deutsche Bank.
Louis Solomon, an attorney general’s office lawyer, questioned Ivanka Trump extensively over the financing of loans for the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Florida through Deutsche Bank.
Because the loans required Donald Trump to provide yearly financial statements, which the attorney general claims were fabricated to increase Trump’s net worth and secure better credit terms, the loans are a crucial component of the case.
As the guarantor, Donald Trump was required by the final terms of the Deutsche Bank loan to maintain a minimum net worth of $2.5 billion.
A previous version of the bank’s proposed loan terms mandated that Trump keep his $3 billion net worth constant. In a court-produced email, Ivanka Trump suggested reducing the net worth threshold to $2 billion.
Trump declared his net worth at $4.2 billion in his 2011 financial status report.
Because he personally insured the loans with the private wealth management company, which gave the option for a high-net-worth individual to back the loan, Trump was able to negotiate better conditions for the Doral property with Deutsche Bank’s loan backed by Trump’s financial statements.
For the same property, the commercial real estate division of Deutsche Bank made multiple offers to the Trump Organisation.
Ivanka Trump disassociates herself from Donald Trump’s financial statement’s assessment of her flat.
Ivanka Trump said she was unaware of the reason why the penthouse apartment she rented from her father’s Trump Park Avenue building was valued at over $12 million higher than what she could afford to buy it for on Donald Trump’s financial statement.
The attorney general’s civil action states that although Ivanka Trump had a $8.5 million purchase option on the condo, the apartment’s worth was $20.8 million on Trump’s financial statement.
Solomon questioned Ivanka Trump about whether her father’s financial statement included the amount of her buy option.
Ivanka Trump retorted, “I wasn’t involved in his statement of financial condition, so I can’t say what it took into account or didn’t take into account. As I had told you a year and a half ago,
She stated in her deposition last year that while she was aware that businesses had financial records, she could not recall any “specific” memories of her father having personal financial statements.
“Yeah, he has accountants with a tonne of stuff and statements, but I don’t know specifically what was prepared for him as an individual apart from the company and the properties I was working on, so no, I don’t know how they did that and who prepared that and the mechanisms like that,” she said in her deposition.
Her evidence regarding the financial statements was similar to that of her brothers, who, although having provided information that was utilised to prepare the statements, likewise claimed not to be aware of the work done on Donald Trump’s statement of financial condition.
Conversations between Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
Ivanka Trump and her spouse, Jared Kushner, served as the president’s top advisors in Donald Trump’s White House.
They were both in the real estate industry before relocating to Washington. The pair did talk about work-related matters, even though Kushner was not employed by the Trump Organisation.
When questioned about the email, she responded, “My husband was also in real estate and would have perspective for me, so periodically we would discuss what we were working on specifically in real estate.”
Solomon inquired about an email exchange concerning possible Capital One funding conditions for the Old Post Office project, which was renovated and reopened as the Trump International Hotel in 2016, against objections from Trump’s legal team asserting spousal privilege.
Kushner said he might present the proposal to the investment firm Natixis, believing they could provide the Trump Organisation with more favourable conditions.
Regarding the email, Ivanka Trump remarked, “I don’t remember this exchange.” However, I frequently sought my husband’s opinion on a project I was working on.
In the attorney general’s case against Trump and his businesses, Ivanka Trump was the last of 25 witnesses—24 of whom testified in person.
The Trump family was summoned by the attorney general’s office, along with former Trump Organisation executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney, who are co-defendants in the case, and other officials who worked on the projects at issue in the case.
The attorney general also heard testimony from Michael Cohen, a former Trump attorney and self-described “fixer,” who said that Weisselberg and his former boss had instructed him to misrepresent his financial statements (Weisselberg claimed the conversation never took place).
Judge Arthur Engoron granted the attorney general summary judgement prior to the start of the trial, finding that Trump and his co-defendants were guilty of fraud.
The judge is currently deliberating the amount of damages that the Trumps would allegedly be required to pay for their alleged use of dishonest business practices, such as exaggerating Trump’s wealth on financial records.
The attorney general is pursuing six additional allegations, including falsifying financial statements, insurance fraud, and manipulating corporate documents.
The Trump team now has the opportunity to defend the previous president. During Trump’s testimony earlier this week, his attorneys hinted that they planned to make a move for a mistrial, citing the judge’s clerk’s actions, among other things.
The motion is very unlikely to succeed because Engoron, in reaction to Trump’s attacks on his clerk, instituted a gag order prohibiting discussion of his staff. However, it will set the precedent for how Trump’s attorneys will attempt to undermine the attorney general’s case in both the court of public opinion and the legal system.
During their cross-examination of Ivanka Trump on Wednesday, Trump’s attorneys provided a sneak peek at their case by talking about emails in which Deutsche Bank expressed satisfaction with having the Trump Organisation as a client.
They contend that since the banks were compensated, there is no victim to the attorney general’s lawsuit. (The attorney general’s office claims that because of the loan rates Trump obtained through deception, the banks were duped out of hundreds of millions of dollars.)
Ivanka Trump said that during the loan negotiations, Deutsche Bank was informed about her family’s plans for the refurbishment of the Doral golf course in Florida.
Regarding Deutsche Bank, “they were pretty excited about it,” she remarked. “They sent groups of people to tour the property so we could see it and feel it before we bought it.”
Donald Trump gave a sneak peek at the defence he thinks his team will mount during his hearing on Monday.
“As this trial progresses—this ridiculous trial—we will clarify it. We are bringing in certain bankers, and they will tell you—very big bankers, bankers who worked with me—and they will detail their procedures in detail. However, these were extremely powerful bankers, and they will describe the procedure,” Trump remarked, just before the court reprimanded him for speaking.
But in a letter to the judge, the attorney general’s office requested to be heard on requests to prevent some of Trump’s expert witnesses from testifying on Thursday. Attorneys general’s office attorneys claimed that several of the witnesses’ testimony pertains to matters that the judge has already decided, particularly those concerning the accounting regulations related to property valuation and how it was done.