Former US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump took the witness stand on Wednesday morning to testify in the $250 million civil tax frauds trial brought forth by Attorney General Letitia James, which seeks to cancel Trump business licences to do business in Manhattan and fine him for tax fraud.
She claimed she had no memory of the emails reportedly sent by her to banks such as Deutsche bank and others on the plea for loans.
She became the fourth member of the Trump family to testify after her father and two brothers testified earlier.
Ivanka was questioned about the Doral golf club near Miami, which she said was the family’s goal to “reposition it as a luxury golf resort in south Florida,” media reports said.
She was shown an email about Doral to Andrew Beal, founder of Beal Bank, from 2011.
“My father will also send you his most recent financial statements by hard mail,” she had written.
Ivanka claimed she has no recollection of that email. She was also shown an email from Steve Harvey that same year about Doral.
“I don’t recall this email,” she said.
Ivanka also claimed she did not recall the interest rate in the attached term sheet or any other terms of the deal.
Ivanka is fairly soft-spoken. Judge Engoron asked her twice to move closer to the microphone. She was smiling through most of her responses, answering deliberately and in full sentences in stark contrast to her father’s meandering half-finished thoughts, UK’s Independent reported.
Ivanka was on the witness stand today inside a lower Manhattan courtroom after exhausting all her attempts to avoid testifying in a trial that threatens her family’s business and vast real-estate empire.
Donald Trump’s eldest daughter walked briskly into New York Supreme Court on Wednesday morning in a dark suit and smiled as she entered a third-floor courtroom. She is the final witness summoned by New York Attorney General Letitia James in the sixth week of a trial that could last through Christmas.
Her appearance comes a week after testimony from her brothers and two days after testimony from her father, who was scheduled to be the headlining final act for the Attorney General’s case, CNN reported.
Taking to Truth Social on Tuesday night, Trump fumed about Ivanka having to testify.
“Tomorrow my wonderful and beautiful daughter, Ivanka, is going to the Lower Manhattan Courthouse, at the direction of Letitia Peekaboo James, the corrupt and racist New York Attorney General, who has allowed murder and violent crime in New York to flourish, and a Trump hating, out of control Clubhouse-appointed Judge, Arthur Engoron,” he ranted, before adding that it was “sad”, Independent reported.
This comes after Trump’s testimony on Monday, in which he lashed out at both Judge Arthur Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James, calling her a “political hack”. The judge warned Trump to stop using the courtroom as a “political rally” and urged his attorney “to control him”. He had also fined him $10,000 twice cumulatively for defying his gag orders and intimidating his court staff in social media.
The trial threatens to topple the family’s business empire — the Trump Organisation.
In another email shown to the court from December 2011, Ivanka writes to Deutsche Bank executives and CCs Jared Kushner, her husband and partner in the business. It includes an “investment memo” for Doral.
“My father and I are very much looking forward to meeting with you to discuss Doral,” Ivanka wrote.
The email also included “some basic information on our golf and hotel properties”.
She said she doesn’t remember the meeting.
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