Ivanka Trump Kushner may have successfully weaseled her way out of being named as a defendant in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million fraud lawsuit against the Trump Organization, but it appears she’ll still be making an appearance in court.
As a witness.
This week, Donald Trump, Don Jr., and Eric were found liable for fraud by Justice Arthur F. Engoron after lying about the value of their properties to secure cheaper loans, inflating their worth to banks and insurers by billions of dollars a year.
Now, the former first daughter, who worked as an executive vice president for the family business before quitting to become a senior advisor in the Trump White House, has been listed as #14 of 28 witnesses submitted by James to the Superior Court of New York County.
Prior to becoming a witness, Ivanka had been a defendant in the case, but she managed to convince an appeals court to dismiss the charges against her on a technicality after essentially throwing her brothers under the bus.
In April, she ditched the team of lawyers she had been sharing with them and hired her own attorney, Bennet Moskowitz, who is perhaps most famous for representing the estate of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
In May, Moskowitz argued that James’ lawsuit “does not contain a single allegation that Ms. Trump directly or indirectly created, prepared, reviewed, or certified any of her father’s financial statements.”
“Other individuals were responsible for those tasks,” he told the court. (The “other individuals” presumably being Ivanka’s brothers.)
And in June, the New York appeals court ultimately determined the statutes of limitations had run out so Ivanka could no longer be charged, earning her the nickname “Teflon Ivanka”, to go along with her “#UnwantedIvanka” and “Nepotism Barbie” monikers.
But it appears James isn’t finished with her yet!
Ivanka may not longer be defendant in the case, but she’s still going to have to testify against her family under oath at trial. Although she’ll no doubt use the same strategy as she did when she had to testify before the January 6 committee last year.
In the executive summary released in December 2022, the committee said the former first daughter was not “forthcoming” in her testimony about the days leading up to her father’s failed coup and exhibited “a lack of full recollection of certain issues.”
The committee also noted she had a lot of convenient memory gaps about things other witnesses seemed to remember very clearly.
The trial against the Trump Organization is scheduled to kick off next week and could run through the end of the year. The one-term, twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted ex-president is facing a $250 million fine as well as the prospect of losing all his New York properties, including his prized Trump Tower.
