On Wednesday, Ivanka Trump took the witness stand in the New York civil fraud trial against her father, Donald Trump, and his namesake organization.
The lawsuit was brought on by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has claimed that Trump, along with many of his family members and allies, has fraudulently inflated assets for financial gain over the years in order to obtain favorable loan terms.
Despite her pleas to stay out of the case after being dismissed as a defendant four months ago, the state still ordered Ivanka to testify as a witness.
Ivanka began by establishing herself as a former employee at the Trump Organization, saying that she spent much of her time working on development for the Old Post Office in Washington, D.C., and later the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Florida.
Ivanka confirmed that she received a profit from the sale of the Old Post Office building in 2022. However, she claimed that she has not received any compensation from Trump Organization entities since she left in 2017 when she went to work under her father in the White House.
The state attorney also questioned Ivanka about a discrepancy in the value of a penthouse apartment at Trump Park Avenue in New York City.
She confirmed that there had been a purchase option for $8.5 million, though the value of the apartment on Trump’s official statement of financial condition was $20.8 million.
Ivanka claimed that she did not know anything about her father’s decisions regarding his financial statement.
“As I had told you a year-and-a-half ago, I wasn’t involved in [Trump’s] statement of financial condition, so I can’t say what it took into account or didn’t take into account,” she said.
The state proceeded to admit emails from Ivanka to her father, which depicted her proposing to lower the required net worth for her father under a loan agreement with Deutsche Bank in 2011.
These emails are congruent with the attorney general’s claims that Trump falsified his financial statements in order to obtain better loan rates.
Ivanka has been busy with her husband, Jared Kushner, building a $32 million mansion in Miami.
