Ivanka Gives Poised Testimony, Still Hurts Dad in Fraud Case

Outside the court New York Attorney General Letitia James said Ivanka was “cordial, she was disciplined, she was controlled and she was very courteous,” however, “her testimony raises questions with regards to its credibility, which will be a question for the finding of fact.”

“The reality is, is that based on the evidence, the documentary evidence, she clearly was involved in negotiating and securing loans, favorable loans, for the benefit of the Trump Organization, for Mr. Trump and her brothers and for herself,” James continued.

“At the end of the day, this case is about fraudulent statements of financial condition that she benefitted from, she was enriched. And clearly you cannot distance yourself from that fact. The documents do not lie. The numbers do not lie,” James said. “And despite the fact that she was very, very nice, very friendly, the facts, basically, demonstrate the truth.”

That’s also a wrap on the AG’s civil case. Ivanka was the last of 25 witnesses called by the attorney general in the past six weeks. Trump’s attorney are set to begin their defense on Monday, and the trial expected to conclude by mid-December.

The former First Daughter has concluded her time on the stand. Trump lawyers finished their cross-examination and there was no redirect from the attorney general’s office. The Times notes Ivanka smiled at Engoron on her way out of court, in contrast to her father’s combative performance.

Suarez asked Ivanka “How do you feel about the work that you did for your family’s business?”

She responded, “I feel incredibly proud of the work that I did for the Trump Hotel Collection,” pointing to the Doral and Old Post Office. As MSNBC notes she limited her response to those projects rather than says she’s proud of her work with the Trump Organization more broadly.

Suarez concluded by asking repetitive questions about how much Deutsche Bank enjoyed doing business with the Trumps (failing to note that some at the company were annoyed about Donald suing the bank in 2008). Ivanke gushed that her father had a “deep and nostalgic love” for the Doral golf course project. According to the Times, Judge Engoron appeared to check his watch as Ivanka gave a lengthy answer about her “vision” for the Old Post Office.

In their cross-examination of Ivanka, Trump’s attorneys seem to be making the case that there were no victims in the case, as the banks that loaned to the Trumps were happy to do business with them, per CNN.

Trump lawyer Jesus Suarez asked Ivanka if Rosemary Bravlic of Deutsche Bank seemed pleased to have the Trump Organization as a client.

“Yes, she expressed tremendous excitement to have our account,” Ivanka said. “I was constantly being told by Rosemary and members of the team how much they appreciated our account.”

Now Ivanka is being cross-examined by Trump attorney Jesus Suarez. The defense did not cross-examine other former employees of the Trump Organization. This suggests they will be called back when the defense makes its case — but not Ivanka.

In the email exchange in question, Ivanka and Jared discuss potential funding terms from Capital One for the Trump Organization’s Old Post Office project. Per CNN, Jared suggested he could go to the investment bank Natixis to try to get better terms for his father-in-law’s company, though he was not an employee.

Ivanka downplayed the revelation that she went to her husband for help finding a lender, saying, “My husband also was in real estate and would have perspective for me so periodically we would discuss what we were working on specific to real estate.”

MSNBC notes that other Trump Organization employees sent Kushner drafts of presentations with a note saying they planned to “remove management fees from the income statement.” Ivanka wouldn’t say whether she thinks that was appropriate.

Upon returning from lunch, Engoron said he does not believe Jared and Ivanka’s emails, which were sent on their work accounts, are protected by spousal privilege.

A 2013 email produced by the Trump Organization provided some insight into Javanka’s business dealings. Ivanka told her husband, per MSNBC:

“I made the below deal with him: DB private bank and Cap One total carve out/ 150 flat-fee for Wells and Natixis/4 percent for everyone else.”

While this may not be scandalous or even comprehensible to the average observer, Trump lawyers got upset about it. They claimed the pair’s communications should be protected because of spousal privilege. Judge Engoron said he’d research the issue during the lunch break, which began around 1 p.m.

Ivanka was briefly excused from the room as the attorneys argued over the relevance of several lines of testimony. After she returned to the stand she was questioned about her involvement in the Trump Organization’s bid for the Old Post Office lease, which is administered by the U.S. General Services Administration for the federal government.

The lawsuit alleges that when the General Services Administration raised concerns about Trump’s financial statements, Ivanka responded with an in-person presentation. But in her testimony Ivanka said she does not recall the agency asking about the financial statement specifically.

“I don’t recall them having discussed financial statements specifically,” she said, per the New York Times. “The whole meeting was mainly about our vision for the project.”

Trump shared this misleading assessment of the case on Truth Social shortly after Ivanka started testifying:

The AG’s suit states that while Ivanka’s lease agreement gave her the option to purchase her penthouse in Trump Park Avenue for $8.5 million, in Donald Trump’s statement of financial condition he said the value of the apartment was $20.8 million. Last month Donald Bender, one of Donald Trump’s accountants, testified that he flagged the error.

Ivanka claimed she wasn’t aware of any of this. When asked on the stand if the value of her purchase option was factored into Donald Trump’s financial statement, Ivanka said she had no idea.

“As I had told you a year-and-a-half ago, 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,” she said.

According to observers inside the courtroom, Ivanka appears poised, well-prepared, and fluent in financial topics she’s being questioned on. Though she hasn’t made any missteps it seems her mere presence is boosting the attorney general’s case. Ivanka has said repeatedly said she does not remember details about years-old business negotiations, and looking at contemporaneous emails isn’t refreshing her memory. But as MSNBC explains, “because she both sent and received various communications with Deutsche Bank, she is a vehicle through which documents can be admitted into evidence.”

Ivanka is being asked about her role in securing a $125 million loan to buy the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Florida in 2012. While some of the details are arcane and Ivanka has repeatedly said she does not recall, MSBC explains that the AG’s office is using her testimony to build to a point about Deutsche Bank:

That story goes like this: Unable to find financing with acceptable interest rates, Ivanka was rescued by Rosemary Vrablic, who offered an interest rate that was almost too good to be true in exchange for two key variables: a personal guarantee from Donald Trump and a minimum net worth of $2-3 billion, exclusive of the estimated value of his brand. These were not incidental to Deutsche Bank’s decision to lend; they were, in fact, instrumental to that decision.

And overall, they led to a proposal that Ivanka characterized in an internal December 2011 email as, “It doesn’t get better than this.”

A central claim in the fraud suit is that Trump and his associates lied on the annual balance sheets required as part of the loan, exaggerating the value of various properties to make it appear that they were upholding the terms.

Ivanka is being questioned on her role in maintaining the Trump Organization’s relationship with Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management group. She said her husband Jared Kushner introduced her to a banker at the private wealth management group, Rosemary Vrablic, around 2011 or 20122. This led to the company issuing loans for Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Florida, the Old Post Office in D.C., and Chicago property. As CNN reports, Donald Trump “personally guaranteed” these loans with “financial statements the judge has ruled were fraudulent.”

The initial questions from Lou Solomon of the attorney general’s office focused on Ivanka’s role in her father’s company. She said her duties were “varied and evolved” and she moved up as she gained more experience and “proved herself,” per MSNBC.

She said she does not believe she’s done any work for the company since January 2017 (when she joined her father’s White House administration). However, she said she is benefitting financially from the sale of the Old Post Office project in Washington in 2022, and a consulting agreement with TTT Consulting. As CNBC previously explained:

In 2021 federal disclosures, she reported $2.6 million in income from Trump entities, including revenue from a vehicle known as TTT Consulting LLC. A company bookkeeper testified that TTT was set up for her and her brothers to reap a share of fees from some licensing agreements.

While photographers were allowed to take pictures of Donald Trump and his sons sitting at the defense table, CNN reports that cameras were not allowed in court at the beginning of today’s session. Hopefully the sketch artist will be kinder to Ivanka than she was to Donald.

While Donald Trump used his time on the stand to lash out at Engoron and James, that’s not Ivanka’s style.

Engoron had to ask her to speak up.

In a characteristically rambling Truth Social message posted early on Thursday morning, Donald Trump announced that he finds this turn of events “Sad!”

While Ivanka’s father, Donald Trump, and brothers, Don Jr. and Eric, are defendants in the fraud suit, Ivanka was dismissed from the case in June. An appellate court ruled that her work with the Trump Organization, which ended in 2016, was outside the statute of limitations.

Ivanka then fought Letitia James’s efforts to compel her to testify in the case. Her attorneys initially argued that the New York attorney general did not have the jurisdiction to compel her to testify, as the former First Daughter now lives in Florida. Last month Judge Arthur Engoron rejected that claim, noting, “Ms. Trump has clearly availed herself of the privilege of doing business in New York.”

Engoron also denied a follow-up request from Ivanka’s team to let her sit for a deposition in Florida. “We want her here in person,” Engoron said.

Last week, Ivanka’s team made one last effort to keep her out of court, arguing that Engoron’s order that she must testify — along with the entire trial — should be paused until a New York appellate court could hear her appeal.

“Ms. Trump, who resides in Florida with her three minor children, will suffer undue hardship if a stay is denied and she is required to testify at trial in New York in the middle of a school week, in a case she has already been dismissed from, before her appeal is heard,” her attorney argued in an appeal filed November 2.

The court issued a one-sentence ruling rejecting Ivanka’s request, and she withdrew her appeal.

Donald Trump was combative when he took the stand earlier this