Ivanka Trump pulled back into father’s orbit as she testifies at civil fraud trial

When she sat for a taped deposition in front of members of Congress investigating her father’s attempts to overturn election results, Ivanka Trump revealed that she “accepted” that his false claims were, in fact, false.

Clips from her eight-hour-long testimony to the House select committee, replayed on large screens filling a crowded room inside the Capitol, directly undermined Donald Trump’s persistent lie, one that continues to fuel his ambitions for his return to the White House in 2024.

On 8 November, Ivanka Trump will testify in an open courtroom in another case, one that could land a significant blow against her family’s business and vast real-estate empire as part of a trial stemming from a lawsuit targeting her father and brothers.

Her testimony inside a lower Manhattan courtroom arrives two days after Mr Trump’s, whose verbal outbursts from the witness stand this week unloaded on the case, the presiding judge and the attorney general suing him for fraud.

After she failed to block a subpoena for her appearance on the witness stand, Ms Trump will testify as the final witness for the prosecution, which has called on more than a dozen witnesses over six weeks to build on a case alleging widespread fraud within the Trump Organization and the former president at the helm.

Following her testimony, the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James will hand the case to the defence, which is expected to introduce another round of witness testimony through 15 December, according to Mr Trump’s attorneys.

Ms Trump successfully removed herself as a defendant in the case earlier this year, leaving her father and brothers Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump among the 15 defendants on trial for defrauding banks and investors by grossly inflating Mr Trump’s net worth and assets to gain more favourable financing terms.

The attorney general’s lawsuit, across more than 200 pages, alleges that Mr Trump and his co-defendants materially overvalued his assets by as much as $2.2bn a year over a decade.

Though she is no longer a defendant in the case, Ms Trump “remains financially and professionally intertwined” with the Trump Organization and “can be called as a person still under their control,” according to a recent filing from the attorney general.

Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue was “consistently used by Ms Trump for transacting business through three separate entities” under or partially under her control, the filing argues.

Court filings from Ms Trump’s attorneys failed to convince a judge that the attorney general “is effectively trying to force her back into this case from which she was dismissed.”

“Ms Trump is not a party in this action. Nor is Ms Trump a New York resident. It is black-letter law that, given those two facts, Ms Trump is beyond the jurisdiction of this court,” they argued.

She “will suffer undue hardship” if 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,” according to her attorneys.

Judge Arthur Engoron also rejected her attorneys’ attempts to film her testimony remotely.

During a hearing last month, attorney Christopher Kise asked the judge whether he would allow a taped deposition instead, so that she “doesn’t have to leave her family and three children to come to New York.”

“I want to see her in person,” Judge Engoron said. “That’s how we prefer testimony.”

Ms Trump “has clearly availed herself of the privilege of doing business in New York,” he argued.

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Donald Trump Jr ran a revocable trust to manage his father’s assets while he was in the White House. Eric Trump, meanwhile, ran the Trump Organization’s day-to-day business. In his trial testimony, Mr Trump described his eldest son as a “hard-working boy”. Donald Jr and Eric Trump were also “impressive in business.”

Ivanka Trump, once considered by one of the Trumps’ chief lenders as the “heir apparent” of her father’s empire, left the Trump Organization in 2017 to support her father in the White House. She previously held an “executive vice president” title shared with her brothers.

But Ms Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have sought to distance themselves from the aftermath of her father’s chaotic presidency after he left the White House in 2021. After his election loss, the couple moved to Miami with their three children, largely avoiding the limelight and her father’s 2024 ambitions.

Her appearance in her family’s civil fraud case, following hours of testimony from her father and brothers, could further expose the persona and narrative that has fuelled Mr Trump’s celebrity and political ambitions.

Donald Jr and Eric Trump have largely followed in their father’s footsteps, assailing the judge and the case against them, and distancing themselves from allegedly fraudulent financial documents that are at the heart of the case on the stable of accountants who helped draft them.

Ivanka Trump, who exhausted her attempts to avoid testifying, is likely to try to add as much distance as she can from those documents and other questionable transactions outlined in the attorney general’s complaint.

The questions from counsel with the attorney general’s office are likely to focus on several transactions that allegedly involved fraudulent statements and misrepresentations, including loans from Deutsche Bank for the Old Post Office Pavillion in Washington DC and the Trump National Doral resort in Miami.

According to the lawsuit, “Ms Trump was aware that the transactions included a personal guaranty from Mr Trump that required him to provide annual statements of financial condition,” documents at the centre of the case that were handed over to financial institutions for favourable rates and terms but allegedly included inflated values of the former president’s assets and net worth.

In 2013, the Trump Organization obtained a ground lease from the federal General Services Administration to redevelop the Old Post Office into a hotel. Ms Trump “captained” the project, according to the attorney general’s office.

The Trumps obtained a $170m loan for construction through Deutsche Bank, which required Mr Trump to certify the accuracy of the statements of financial condition he used to secure the loan.

In May 2022, the Trump Organization sold the property for $375m, a $100m profit, “the result of the loan he was able to obtain by using his false and misleading statements,” according to the complaint.

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Last week, Donald Jr and Eric Trump repeatedly testified that they were not involved with those statements of financial condition. Judge Engoron asked the former president’s oldest son at one point whether he had “ anything” to do with them. “No, I did not, your honor,” he replied.

Eric Trump, who has dutifully sat behind his father in court, was shown documents and emails that appeared to contradict his disavowals. “We’re a major organization. A massive real estate organization,” he said in his defence at one point. “I am fairly certain that we would have had financial statements.”

Over his four hours of chaotic testimony on 5 November, Donald Trump downplayed the existence of those documents entirely.

“They were not really documents that the banks paid much attention to,” he said. “They just weren’t a very important element in the bank’s decision-making process. And we’ll explain that as the trial goes along. Crazy trial, as it goes along.”

But through his barrage of insults, he conceded that he was involved, at least somewhat, with those financial statements.

“I would look at them, I would see them, and I would maybe, on occasion, have some suggestions,” he said.