The highly anticipated Ivanka Trump presentation Wednesday concluded an extraordinary eight days of witness evidence by Donald Trump and three of his adult children in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud trial.The AG’s office rested its case after the eldest Trump daughter was questioned about her role in acquiring Trump Organization loans and a penthouse property she leased from her father.
Her appearance on Mo was less controversial than her father’s. The attorney general’s office called 25 witnesses in its case against Trump, his two adult sons, and his business, including the Trumps as the final four. Ivanka Trump is no longer a co-defendant in the attorney general’s lawsuit seeking $250 million in damages and to prevent the former president from conducting business in the state.
AG focused on Deutsche Bank loan talks
Louis Solomon, an attorney general’s lawyer, questioned Ivanka Trump extensively about Doral Golf Resort & S. The loans required Donald Trump to produce annual financial statements, which the attorney general claims were faked to increase his net worth and get better credit rates.As a guarantee for the Deutsche Bank loan, Donald Trump had to have $2.5 billion in net worth.
Earlier bank loan requirements required Trump to have $3 billion in net worth. An email Solomon presented in court from Ivanka Trump recommended lowering the net worth criteria to $2 billion.
Trump’s 2011 financial disclosure showed $4.2 billion in net worth.
Deutsche Bank’s loan secured by Trump’s financial statements gave Trump better conditions for the Doral property since he personally insured the loans with the private wealth management company, which allowed high-net-worth individuals to back the loans.Deutsche Bank’s commercial real estate arm offered the Trump Organisation various conditions for the same property.Ivanka Trump disputes Donald Trump’s financial statement assessment of her flat.
Ivanka Trump denied knowing why Donald Trump’s financial statement valued a penthouse apartment she leased from her father’s Trump Park Avenue building at more than $12 million more than she paid for it.
According to the attorney general’s civil complaint, Ivanka Trump had a $8.5 million purchase option on the apartment, but Trump’s financial statement valued it at $20.8 million.Solomon asked Ivanka Trump if her father’s financial statement included her purchase option value.
“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,” Ivanka Trump said.In her deposition last year, she said she understood firms had financial records but had no “specific” memory of her father having personal financial documents.
I apologise, but I don’t specifically know what was prepared for him as an individual apart from the organization and the properties I was working on. Therefore, I can’t say that I know how or who prepared it or any other mechanisms. “Sure, he has accountants who have all sorts of stuff who have all sorts of statements,” I said. She testified on the financial statements like her brothers, who indicated they were uninformed of Donald Trump’s statement of financial status, even though they contributed material used to prepare it.
Ivanka Trump-Jared Kushner talks
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were Trump’s White House senior aides.Both worked in real estate before arriving in Washington. Although Kushner did not work for the Trump Organization, the pair discussed job matters.she said of the email. “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.
Solomon was questioned about an email thread outlining Capital One finance arrangements for the Old Post Office project, which was restored and launched as the Trump International Hotel in 2016, over Trump’s attorneys’ spousal privilege objections.Because Natixis, an investment bank, might give Trump Org. better terms, Kushner said he could present the contract.Ivanka Trump remarked of the email, “I don’t remember this exchange.” But I would often ask my husband’s opinion on something I was working on.”
The attorney general’s office holds firm...
The attorney general brought 25 witnesses to testify against Trump and his businesses, 24 of whom were in person. Ivanka Trump was the last.The attorney general’s office called the Trump family, former Trump Org. executive Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney, co-defendants, and other Trump Org. personnel who worked on the projects at issue.
The attorney general also heard from former Trump lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen, who testified with Trump watching that his former boss directed him and Weisselberg to exaggerate his financial statements.Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump and his co-defendants committed fraud; therefore, the attorney general gained summary judgement before the trial.
The judge is assessing how much the Trumps should pay in damages for their alleged dishonest business practices, including exaggerating Trump’s wealth on financial statements.The attorney general wants to prove six more claims, including business record falsification, misleading financial statements, and insurance fraud.
The Trump team can defend the former president on Monday. At the close of Trump’s testimony earlier this week, his lawyers indicated they might request a mistrial, citing the judge’s clerk’s conduct.The motion is unlikely to succeed; Engoron banned discussion of his staff in response to Trump’s attacks on his clerk, but it will set the tone for how Trump’s lawyers will try to undermine the attorney general’s case in court and in public opinion.
In their cross-examination of Ivanka Trump on Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers preview their defense by discussing emails where Deutsche Bank was glad to have the Trump Organisation. They claim the attorney general’s complaint has no victim because banks were reimbursed. (The attorney general claims Trump’s loan rates deceived banks of hundreds of millions of dollars.)
In the financial negotiations, Ivanka Trump stated Deutsche Bank supported her family’s vision for Doral golf resort refurbishment.Deutsche Bank was “quite excited about it,” she said. They brought teams down to view the property and experience it before we bought it.
Donald Trump suggested his team’s defense in his Monday testimony.
“As this crazy trial progresses, we will bring in some bankers, and the bankers will tell you—very big bankers, bankers that dealt with me—and explain their processes. But these were very large bankers, and they will explain the process,” Trump said before the judge chastised him for speaking.
The attorney general’s office wrote to the judge seeking to be heard Thursday on motions to bar numerous Trump expert witnesses from testifying. The attorney general’s lawyers stated numerous witnesses’ testimony related to problems already handled by the judge, such as property valuation and accounting regulations.
