Ivanka Trump Is the Grenade That Could Blow Up the Trump Family
Ivanka Trump could be a "very damaging" witness when she is called to testify as part of her family's civil fraud trial in New York, according to a legal expert.
Norm Eisen, an attorney who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Donald Trump's first impeachment trial, made the claim while discussing the former president's eldest daughter's scheduled questioning under oath as part of New York Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million fraud lawsuit.
She was initially named in James' suit, which alleges that her father and two brothers, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, filed fraudulent financial statements that inflated the value of a number of properties and assets for years. The Trumps deny all wrongdoing in connection to James' suit.
Ivanka Trump, who left The Trump Organization in 2017 to join her father's White House administration, was dismissed from the case in June due to the statute of limitations for most of the allegations against her. Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the civil trial, ordered Ivanka Trump to testify after being subpoenaed by James' office, believing she could still provide crucial evidence regarding her family company's business operations.
She launched an appeal to stop her testifying in the case against her family, which is currently scheduled to take place on November 8 after her father and brothers have taken the stand in New York.
Eisen told CNN that she is "unlikely to be successful" and that her testimony could be damaging for the former president and his two sons in the civil trial.
"It is true that she was dismissed from the case because her management responsibilities in these businesses came outside of the statute of limitations," Eisen said. "But she still has firsthand evidence about these gaps in the valuation where they shifted sometimes many times the actual value of the properties.
"The judge and the state are entitled to that testimony," Eisen added. "She also could be potentially a very damaging witness against her father and her brothers and the Trump Organization, and I think she is going to be forced to testify."
Newsweek reached out to Ivanka Trump's legal team for comment via email.
Eisen previously suggested that Ivanka Trump would deliver "bombshell" evidence in her testimony. He cited a claim in James' suit that the former president said in financial statements that his luxury apartment at the Trump Tower in Manhattan was worth $327 million based on claims it was 30,000 square feet when it is actually only 10,996 square feet.
"[Ivanka Trump will] be the last witness in the case, and she's going to have to answer some very hard questions about her father's misrepresentations," Eisen said. "How can you say your home is a little over 30,000 square feet when it's really 10,000 square feet? What is she going to say about her knowledge and her father's knowledge and brothers' knowledge of those false statements? Bombshell testimony."
Tim O'Brien, the author of the biography TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, said Ivanka Trump will be carved up "like a turkey" during her testimony.
"She's going to have to be very careful that the prosecutors simply don't carve her up like a turkey if she dissembles and lies about how the Trumps presented their financial statements to banks, insurance companies and other third parties," O'Brien told MSNBC's The Last Word on Wednesday.
James' office alleges that Ivanka Trump was a key "point of contact and negotiator" with Deutsche Bank for three loans which form a major part of James' investigation.
A recent Forbes report suggested that Ivanka Trump helped her father inflate his net worth by increasing the value of properties such as the Trump National Doral golf resort in Miami while citing conversations the pair had with its reporters in September 2015.
Engoron has already ruled that Trump had committed fraud by misrepresenting the value of his properties for years, including his Trump Tower triplex. The civil trial is now considering six remaining allegations in James' lawsuit, as well as the size of the penalty.
The former president faces being banned from doing business in New York state, having his properties removed from his control, or being forced to pay a fine totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
Uncommon Knowledge
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