Ivanka Trump testified in her father's $250 million civil fraud lawsuit in New York last Wednesday, but not everyone is buying what she had to say on the stand.
Ivanka Trump testified in her father’s $250 million civil fraud lawsuit in New York last Wednesday, but not everyone is buying what she had to say on the stand.
While under oath, the former first daughter used variations of the words “I don’t know”, “I don’t recall”, and “I don’t remember” over 30 times, with a few iterations of “Not that I’m aware of” thrown in for good measure.
Former Trump White House aide Stephanie Grisham (ugh) told MSNBC over the weekend that she doesn’t believe the 42-year-old could hardly remember anything from the 12 years she worked as the executive vice president for development and acquisition at the Trump Organization.
“I don’t buy that she doesn’t recall things,” Grisham said. “Ivanka Trump is a very, very smart woman and has an amazing memory. I used to actually always marvel about that when I worked with her.”
“So the talking about not recalling kind of rang a little not true to me,” she continued. “But her behavior was exactly the opposite of her father’s and that is what I saw the entire time was with them.”
Ivanka Trump appears to be very poised, friendly and willing to engage with the attorney general’s office during her testimony, but is beginning to become more evasive with her answers.
She smiles and speaks softly, responding politely, but has started to repeat the phrase, “I don’t recall,” in response to documents being shown to her, including letters and emails she wrote herself.
Chris Kise, one of the president’s attorneys, has also made several objections. Engoron questioned Kise if he was “going to object to every document.”
Regardless of how you might feel about Grisham, there’s no question she has intimate knowledge of the Trumps, having worked in various roles in the Trump White House–from White House communications director to White House press secretary, to the press secretary and chief of staff for Melania Trump.
It wasn’t until after the January 6 insurrection that she finally distanced herself and became an outspoken critic of the alleged crime family.
Grisham went on to criticize Ivanka’s court appearance last week by reminding people that she “tried to get out of doing it many, many times, stating that it was the middle of a school week and that was an undue hardship for her.”
Ultimately, when she finally did take the stand, Grisham says Ivanka “was poised” and “answered things, you know, in the way that she does.”
Ivanka appeared to use the same tactic last week as she used while testifying-but-not-testifying before the January 6 committee last year.
In its executive summary of its year-and-a-half-long investigation released in December 2022, the committee noted that she had a shockingly limited memory of major events that happened just one year earlier.
“Ivanka Trump was not as forthcoming as [Trump White House Counsel Pat] Cipollone and others about President Trump’s conduct,” the executive summary stated, accusing her of exhibiting “a lack of full recollection of certain issues.”
The summary went on to say that she had a lot of convenient memory gaps and often “Ivanka Trump’s Chief of Staff Julie Radford had a more specific recollection of Ivanka Trump’s actions and statements.”
Video of the former first daughter arriving at the New York Supreme Court building last week went viral after she was met by chants of “Fraud family!” and signs that read “Indict Ivanka Trump” being waved by protestors.
After her big day in court, she retreated the safety and solitude of her ill-gotten New York City penthouse, where she posted a dramatic black and white photo of herself in the mirror to Instagram.
