Ivanka Trump testimony summary
Ivanka Trump testified for more than four hours Wednesday in New York attorney general Letitia James’s civil fraud case against her father and his namesake company, as well as her brothers Donald Trump Jr and Eric. Government attorney Louis Solomon repeatedly questioned Ivanka about involvement in loan deals for her father.
While Ivanka repeatedly said she didn’t recall, multiple documents presented in court indicated that she had a role in loan deals for him. Here are some key points from her testimony this afternoon.
Ivanka said at various points that she didn’t know much about accounting. She said she’d learned about GAAP, or “generally accepted accounting principals”, in school, but didn’t do much with it in her working life. However, a December 2011 email about a deal between then Trump Organization executives David Orowitz and Allen Weisselberg stated: “Ivanka wanted me to change the language in the GAAP section. She asked that I review with you.” By undermining her prior claim, the government was suggesting that she would be in a position to know about questionable real estate valuations.
On cross-examination, Trump lawyer Jesus Suarez tried vehemently to convey that Deutsche Bank was chasing after the family’s business, to suggest that the ex-president wasn’t securing loans through spurious financials. Deutsche Bank wanted the Trumps, so they didn’t need to woo the lender fraudulently. Ivanka Trump said that Deutsche approached Trump with investment opportunities from time to time, and described a “level of excitement for the relationship and positive feelings”. Suarez also showed an email in which their banker at Deutsche asked her to participate in a promotional video.
As per usual with this case, Trump’s lawyers complained about alleged unfairness and accused the government of laughing at them. “I have to sit here and ask questions and listen to them laugh – that’s insulting, your honor,” Suarez boomed, pointing at the government table. “They’re laughing! They’re sitting back here laughing. They think this is funny.” Suarez also claimed: “The government is sitting here laughing at their attempts to destroy this company!” Suarez ended his cross-examination shortly thereafter.
James’s office said that they were not calling any more witnesses, but reserved the right to bring Weisselberg back to the stand. The defense is expected to start presenting its case on Monday.
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Letitia James’s team has said the government is resting, but will reserve the right to re-call Allen Weisselberg, the former Trump Organization chief financial officer. Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to tax crimes, was the prosecution’s star witness during the Trump Organization criminal trial.
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Ivanka Trump's cross-examination ends
Trump attorney Jesus Suarez has concluded his cross-examination of Ivanka Trump. New York attorney general Letitia James’s office did not have any redirect. Ivanka Trump is done testifying.
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Donald Trump, who called judge Arthur Engoron “fraudulent” and “unfair”, has a legal team that openly voices sentiments about alleged judicial bias. This afternoon, Engoron seemed exasperated by the constant stream of accusations when team Trump took issue with one of his rulings.
“Your constant insinuations that I have some kind of double standard, it’s just not true,” Engoron said. “You can keep saying if it makes you happy: ‘I’m favoring one side over the other.’
“Like the umpire says, I call them while I see them.”
“I have to call it like I see it,” Trump lawyer Chris Kise said to Engoron. Kise complained that Engorons rulings were “frequently going in a different direction” – that is, in favor of the attorney general’s office – especially on evidence issues.
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As part of Trump attorney Jesus Suarez’s effort to show that Deutsche Bank very much wanted to work with Donald Trump, he showed Ivanka Trump an email in which a banker lauded them.
“Dear Donald,” the March 2013 email read. “Great to meet you for lunch last week.” The banker wrote that it had been a pleasure to see Trump’s “delight” in his family holdings and “your justified pride in having your children in the business”.
Ivanka Trump is now being questioned about her role in redeveloping the Old Post Office in Washington DC. “When we took over the building, it was completely dilapidated. It was [a] government-owned and -managed project with a food court in the basement and some commercial officer around the perimeter,” she said.
“It was a labor of love. It was a lot of work, to bring that vision to fruition.”
Suarez asked Ivanka Trump whether Deutsche Bank had been “excited” about their plans for the project.
“Yes, absolutely,” she said.
Ivanka Trump claimed their banker had called the Old Post Office the “crown jewel” of their real estate portfolio.
Again, this is all part of Suarez’s effort to show that the Trumps were earnest in weighing potential value with properties – and acted on their belief in said potential.
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Ivanka Trump describes Deutsche Bank's 'positive feelings' towards her family in fraud trial testimony
Letitia James’s civil case against Donald Trump is centered on the claim that he committed fraud against financial institutions by overstating the values of his assets and net worth, to land plum loan deals. Among said institutions was Deutsche Bank, Trump’s longtime lender.
On cross-examination of Ivanka Trump, Trump attorney Jesus Suarez attempted to shift this narrative, contending that Deutsche Bank actively courted the family’s business.
“From time to time, Deutsche Bank would present you with other investment opportunities?” he asked.
Ivanka responded in the affirmative.
“Deutsche Bank was excited about the relationship they had with your family?” Suarez asked.
“Yes, they were,” she said.
At times, Ivanka Trump smiled during her testimony. She said that there was a “level of excitement for the relationship and positive feelings” at Deutsche Bank towards her family.
“Was it the case that Deutsche Bank wanted to showcase your family’s relationship with the bank in a promotional video?” Suarez asked.
“That’s quite possible,” she responded.
Suarez showed an October 2012 email on a screen from the Trumps’ banker at Deutsche.
“Ivanka,” the email started. “My boss has been asked to provide a client’s view of Deutsche Bank [private wealth management] … the video will focus on our market position in the US. We were wondering if you would be so kind to do this.”
“I can’t recall if I did the video or not,” Ivanka said. She claimed that their Deutsche Bank rep “constantly” told them “how much they appreciated our relationship”.
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Ivanka Trump's direct testimony ends
The state attorney questioning Ivanka Trump, Louis Solomon, completed his questioning moments ago.
Before that, he grilled her still more on involvement in loans to show that she had knowledge of Trump Organization finances.
In a December 2011 email about a deal, the then Trump Organization executive David Orowitz told Allen Weisselberg: “Ivanka wanted me to change the language in the GAAP section. She asked that I review with you.”
This email is noteworthy, considering that Ivanka – who was dismissed from James’s lawsuit – has disavowed deep knowledge of accounting practices at Trump Organization. GAAP stands for “generally accepted accounting principles”.
The point of this? If Ivanka Trump asked for changes to the language, she knew more about accounting principals than she let on.
Ivanka Trump, who was called by James’s team, is now undergoing cross-examination.
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Ivanka Trump returns to the witness stand
The former first daughter is resuming her testimony in New York attorney general Letitia James’s civil fraud case against her father, and her brothers Eric and Donald Trump Jr.
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Good afternoon.
Court has resumed after the lunch break. Ivanka Trump is expected to return to the stand within moments.
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Ivanka Trump testimony: lunchtime summary
Ivanka Trump took the stand on Wednesday morning in New York attorney general Letitia James’s civil fraud lawsuit against her father, and brothers Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump. Louis Solomon, who questioned Ivanka Trump for the attorney general’s office, repeatedly asked about acquiring loans for her father.
Much of the questioning was granular, involving discussions of interest rates, for example, but some moments revealed bankers’ concern about giving Trump loans. Here are some highlights from her testimony thus far.
Deutsche Bank was leery of loaning Trump money due to the 2016 campaign. One Deutsche banker, responding to a request for an unsecured loan, told Ivanka Trump in an email: “As for doing any large unsecured amounts, I think that would raise too [many] eyebrows given the political environment.” The banker also said: “At the end, it came down to a global corporate decision to maintain neutrality to any political situation and not lend money to a highly politically exposed person.”
Also in the context of a request for an unsecured loan, Deutsche Bank was concerned about whether Trump had free cash. “I think it would be difficult since we do not have any large unsecured amounts such as this request in the entire [private banking] portfolio and this would certainly be an outlier,” the banker said in an email to Ivanka. Among Deutsche’s concerns, “for that amount, it would look as if liquidity is an issue” for Trump.
Ivanka Trump insisted that the Trump Organization intended to revamp his golf resort in Doral, south Florida. This is important in discussion of valuations. If Trump wanted to claim that assets weren’t overblown – because of the potential value due to improvements – he’d have to show intention to do that. So, if the attorney general shows that there wasn’t really an intention, it suggests that the assets were knowingly overvalued. “I think it was our intention, regardless, to renovate throughout … the reason we bought the property was because we believed in its potential, to be something better than it was,” she claimed.
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Court will go on break for lunch. Ivanka Trump’s testimony will resume after the break.
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As Donald Trump sought rights to redevelop Washington DC’s Old Post Office building, a document from his company boasted about his friendship with Tom Barrack, who became his inaugural committee chair. (Barrack, recall, was charged with illegal foreign lobbying; he was tried and acquitted in 2022.)
In one document submitted to federal authorities, who were in charge of granting redevelopment rights, Barrack was described as being involved in the desired project. “Donald J Trump and Thomas J Barrack, Jr have a friendship that has lasted more than 25 years,” the document said. The document was presented as Solomon questioned Ivanka Trump on discussions of her father’s finances in making a pitch for the project.
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While the testimony may have seemed dry this morning, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin says a “devastating” series of documents have now been entered in the case:
MSNBC Legal Analyst @lawofruby breaks down the first session of Ivanka Trump's testimony, including "a devastating series of documents for the Trump Org." pic.twitter.com/tQzgsXKgYb
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 8, 2023
The documents show that Donald Trump turned to Deutsche Bank’s private wealth unit after other lenders insisted on higher interest rates on loans because of the risks he posed.
To get Deutsche’s loan, Trump had to personally guarantee that he had a personal net worth of $2.5bn and could cover the loan. A Trump lawyer said in an email to Ivanka that that might be “a problem”.
But Trump claimed to be worth $4bn and got the loan. The New York attorney general is arguing that Trump was worth far less than $2.5bn and that these exchanges prove Trump defrauded the lenders.
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Ivanka Trump has returned to the witness stand. Her testimony is resuming.
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Ivanka Trump’s testimony is on pause for the morning break.
Before the break, additional emails showed that Deutsche Bank claimed to be leery of lending large amounts of money to Trump because of his candidacy. “As for doing any large unsecured amounts, I think that would raise too [many] eyebrows given the political environment,” one banker at the firm told Ivanka Trump in a February 2016 email.
In another note, the banker said: “We are disappointed that the bank couldn’t make the exception in this case. We apologize that it took so long, however, it was necessary since the bank really appreciates your family’s relationship and took it to the top of the house – including John Cryan, the CEO – yesterday to try to get it done.
“At the end, it came down to a global corporate decision to maintain neutrality to any political situation and not lend money to a highly politically exposed person.
“We have been told by everybody that this is a timing issue so that once the candidacy is settled, we can proceed with business as usual with you … .”
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Ivanka tells court she does not recall details of loans correspondence
Ivanka Trump has repeatedly said she didn’t recall when asked about details involving correspondences about loans. But emails between Ivanka and a Deutsche Bank financier indicate that she was involved in seeking loans – and aware of skepticism surrounding her dad’s assets.
Indeed, state attorney Louis Solomon’s questioning and presentation of said emails indicate that she was involved in seeking an unsecured loan for her father, in February 2016.
The Deutsche Bank banker told her: “I think it would be difficult since we do not have any large unsecured amounts such as this request in the entire [private banking] portfolio and this would certainly be an outlier.”
The banker said they had several concerns, and “for that amount, it would look as if liquidity is an issue” for Trump.
This email is of particular note. Trump has defended his net worth repeatedly in court, saying on Monday: “I’ve had a lot of cash for a long time.” The attorney general has claimed that his net worth was puffed up by overvalued assets, so a document chipping away at this claim is integral for her case.
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Ivanka Trump testimony echoes that of her brothers on stand
Earlier Wednesday morning, Ivanka Trump claimed that she didn’t know all that much about Trump Organization accounting – similar to her brothers’ claims last week.
State attorney Louis Solomon asked Ivanka – who was an executive vice-president at her dad’s company – whether she was familiar with GAAP, or generally accepted accounting principles.
“Very general, I’m not an accountant,” she said.
“Other than any accounting classes you may have taken at university, have you had experience with GAAP in your professional career?” Solomon asked.
There was one document she remembered involving GAAP, but other than that, it didn’t sound familiar, Ivanka said, adding: “No, not that I recall beyond that.”
During their testimony, Eric and Donald Trump Jr also disavowed knowing all that much about accounting and the financial inner workings of their dad’s company.
“I never had anything to do with the statements of financial condition,” Eric Trump said.
“I know nothing about GAAP,” Trump Jr said, per CNN. “I leave it to my accountants.”
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Ivanka Trump asked about Trump Organization's intentions to renovate Florida golf resort
Given that New York attorney general Letitia James’s case involves Trump’s alleged overvaluation of assets, the state is trying to undermine any claim that property valuations also included potential value – effectively, the position that there wasn’t anything wrong with seemingly oversized sums because of what the real estate could amount to.
Donald Trump claimed on Monday in court, for example, that the valuation of his golf resort in Aberdeen, Scotland, was legitimate, because he could build hundreds of houses there “anytime I want”. He also said: “There’s nothing wrong with sitting on a property and waiting if you’re willing to play their game.”
As part of the state’s effort to undermine claims of potential value, state attorney Louis Solomon asked Ivanka whether there were plans to revamp the Trump National Doral golf resort in south Florida. Was it the Trump Organization’s intention to renovate Doral?
“I think it was our intention, regardless, to renovate throughout,” Ivanka said. “At one point, we had explored doing the project with just available cash on hand … rather than have any financing. … The reason we bought the property was because we believed in its potential, to be something better than it was … to rebrand it.
“Our goal was to reposition it as a luxury golf resort in south Florida.”
Intention is key here. If the state can establish that Trump didn’t really mean to do anything with his properties that would increase the value, then authorities can more easily demonstrate that the valuations were fraudulent.
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Ivanka Trump, unsurprisingly, is far better behaved than her father was on the stand.
Rather than repeatedly berate Judge Engoron as biased and lambaste the court as a fraud, she responded politely when asked to speak up.
“I think the trick may be to move the microphone closer to you,” Engoron said, following several moments of hard-to-hear testimony.
“Sorry,” she said.
“And obviously, keep your voice up,” the judge added.
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Ivanka Trump starts testimony
The attorney for New York attorney general Letitia James questioning Ivanka Trump, Louis Solomon, has started his inquiry.
“At some point in time, did you become [an] executive vice-president of the organization?” Solomon asked.
“I did,” Ivanka said.
Solomon asked Ivanka Trump about her background and duties working for her father.
“They varied,” she said, saying that she started small and worked her way up with larger and larger projects. “I proved myself within the context of the organization.”
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Ivanka Trump called to the stand to testify
“The people call Ivanka Trump.”
Ivanka Trump has been called to the stand as a witness in the civil fraud trial against her father and two of her brothers, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump.
While Ivanka Trump had been a defendant in New York attorney general Letitia James’s lawsuit, a state appeals court dismissed the claims against her this summer. The court determined that the statute of limitations involving alleged fraud had passed, as Ivanka no longer worked for her father’s company after 2016, per ABC News.
After she was called, Judge Engoron joked: “Who’s she?”
She has yet to enter the courtroom.
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Key points from Donald Trump's testimony
Before things get underway in the courtroom, here is a reminder of what happened during Donald Trump’s day in court on Monday:
Former president Donald Trump, who faces criminal charges for alleged election meddling, decried the trial as “election interference” during one of his testy digressions. Trump got onto the topic of election chicanery by saying “this case is a disgrace”. He then said that New York attorney general Letitia James was more concerned about sitting in court despite “everybody being killed on the streets of New York”. Then came Trump’s mention of the 2024 race: “We sit here all day – it’s election interference, because you want to keep me in the courthouse!”
After the trial proceedings concluded, Trump spoke briefly to reporters outside the courtroom and called for the case to be dismissed. “I think it’s a very sad day for America,” Trump said. “This is a case that should’ve never been brought and it’s a case that should be immediately dismissed.”
Trump very much took issue with any suggestion that his wealth was not as he claimed. According to James’s suit, Trump secured favorable loan and insurance terms by puffing up the value of his assets, including real estate. When state attorney Kevin Wallace noted that several loan agreements required he maintain a $2.5bn net worth, Trump said: “I could have given them a few assets which were worth more than $2.5bn.” Trump also wanted to make clear he was liquid. “I’ve had a lot of cash for a long time,” he said.
The ex-president also feigned ignorance about details of financial transactions. He said, for example, that a loan for a project in Chicago had been paid off recently, but couldn’t recall when. Wallace asked him: “Are you aware that the Trump Chicago loan was paid off last week?” Trump said: “I heard it was … I don’t know if it was last week. I know it was recently.” He claimed that his son Eric Trump made the call to pay off the loan early.
Judge Arthur Engoron, whom Trump has repeatedly bashed as a political operative amid other smears along those lines, threatened to throw him him off the witness stand for not answering questions succinctly. Engoron said to the ex-president’s lawyer Chris Kise: “I beseech you to control him. If you can’t, I will; I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can.” Not surprisingly, Trump groused: “This is a very unfair trial … and I hope the public is watching.”
Trump in effect accused Engoron – who determined the ex-president’s real estate valuations were fraudulent – of being a fraud. “The fraud is on behalf of the court,” Trump ranted. “He says that I’m a fraud … He’s the one that didn’t value property correctly.” He also told Engoron: “You’re wrong.”
The core of attorney general Letitia James’s civil fraud trial is Trump’s inflation of real estate assets, so it’s noteworthy that he seemed to recognize that his Trump Tower triplex might have been overstated. Asked about the fact that the triplex had been listed as 30,000 sq ft on financial statements – but was only about 10,000 sq ft – Trump said it could have been a miscalculation. Whoever came up with the square footage, Trump said, just tripled the floor space for each floor. But, “they didn’t take out elevator shafts” and other nonusable square footage, he surmised.
Trump told the court he was too “busy” as president to review a financial document related to real estate valuation. “Were you involved in the preparation of the 2021 statement?” prosecutor Kevin Wallace asked. “No,” Trump said. “I hadn’t seen it. I was so busy in the White House.” He added: “My threshold was China, Russia and keeping our country safe.”
Trump showed some self-awareness in court this morning when describing his political ascent. While insisting that his net worth was not overstated, Trump repeatedly pointed to the value of the Trump name. “The most valuable asset was the brand value,” he said. “If you look at the companies, the brand value is a very big part of the asset value of the company.” Shortly thereafter, he said: “I became president because of my brand.”
James spoke outside the court before the hearing. She said she expected Trump to “engage in name-calling and taunts and race-baiting, and call this a witch-hunt”. James said the former president has “repeatedly and consistently misrepresented and inflated the value of his assets”. “But at the end of the day, the only thing that matters are the facts and the numbers – and numbers, my friends, don’t lie,” she added.
James stood by the prosecution’s work after a contentious day with Trump in court. “At the end of the day, the documentary evidence demonstrated the fact he falsely inflated his assets to basically enrich himself and his family,” she said. She said the former president chose to “engage in distractions” while on the stand. “I will not be bullied,” James said.
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Ivanka Trump arrives in court
Ivanka Trump has arrived at the Manhattan courthouse where she will testify in the civil fraud trial involving her father and brothers.
Ivanka had argued that appearing in court during the school week presented undue hardship as she is a busy mother of school-age children – but the former president’s daughter is at the court today after an appeal court rejected her argument.
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Early this morning, hours before Ivanka Trump would testify in New York attorney general Letitia James’s civil fraud trial against her father, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social in his daughter’s defense – and once again invoked the bogeyman of urban crime, as well as false racism allegations.
“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 State 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, who viciously ruled against me before the trial even started … ,” he said in his post.
Trump also insisted that James and Judge Arthur Engoron, both of whom he called “fraudulent” in his screed, were trying to make him “look bad – Election Interference!”
Trump, recall, faces charges in Georgia related to election meddling.
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Ivanka Trump’s turn on the stand comes days after her father gave testy and at times chaotic testimony in court on Monday.
My colleague David Smith wrote this analysis on Monday’s hearing:
One has signed historic climate and infrastructure legislation, steered the economy past a recession and rallied the west against Vladimir Putin. The other spent Monday on trial for fraud ranting and raving against a judge in a puerile display from the witness stand.
And if a presidential election were held today, Joe Biden would lose to Donald Trump by a lot, according to the latest swing state polls.
Maybe it’s the pandemic, or inflation, or tribalism, but it is increasingly hard to deny that something strange and perverse is happening in American politics.
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Donald Trump denies any wrongdoing, as do the other defendants. He insisted in court on Monday that his financial statements greatly underestimated his net worth, that any discrepancies were minor, that a disclaimer absolved him of liability and that “this case is a disgrace”, the AP writes.
Ivanka Trump was an executive vice-president at the family’s Trump Organization before becoming an unpaid senior adviser in her father’s White House. Like her brothers, who are still Trump Organization executive vice-presidents, she has professed minimal knowledge of their father’s annual financial statements.
During sworn testimony for the investigation that eventually led to the lawsuit, she said:
I don’t, specifically, know what was prepared on his behalf for him as a person, separate and distinct from the organization and the properties that I was working on.
She said she didn’t know who prepared the statements or how the documents were compiled.
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Ivanka Trump to testify in family fraud trial
Ivanka Trump is set to appear on the witness stand today at her father’s New York $250m fraud trial. She will be the last family member and the last witness to testify before the prosecution rests its case.
Last month, Ivanka Trump asked the court to remove her from the prosecution’s witness list, though she ultimately rescinded the appeal. Ivanka Trump tried to argue that appearing in court would cause her “undue hardship” if she were to testify during the school week.
The attorney general’s office had wanted Trump’s elder daughter to testify in court before the former president himself took the stand, but ultimately rescheduled her appearance because of her appeal.
Once listed as a co-defendant in the case, along with her father and two adult brothers, an appeals court tossed out the claims against Ivanka Trump last summer, saying that her involvement with the Trump Organization had passed the statute of limitations.
Court is due to start at 10am ET and we’ll bring you all the latest updates from Ivanka Trump’s testimony.
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