Ivanka Trump, eldest daughter of twice-impeached former president Donald Trump, has appeared to throw her family members under the bus in a New York fraud suit. The former first daughter, 41, awkwardly implied that her father Donald, 76, and brothers may have committed fraud at the Trump Organization.
The New York attorney general’s case against the Trump Organization (Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., 45, Ivanka Trump, and Eric Trump, 39) is set to go to trial on October 2, 2023. Here’s what we know about Ivanka’s legal team’s approach:
Ivanka is asking the judge to separate her from her brothers and father in the New York fraud case, but doing so could help the attorney general make her case. https://t.co/6HRK2zBg9q
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) March 7, 2023
Ivanka Trump’s Legal Team Implies That Her Family Committed Fraud
As Vanity Fair reports, the defendants (who denied everything) were accused in 2022 of committing a decade’s worth of “staggering” fraud. They allegedly made over “200 false and misleading valuations from 2011 to 2021,” as the publication notes, with AG Letitia James charging that “the pattern of fraud that was used by Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization was astounding.”
If the Trump Organization and family are found liable, the state of New York has asked for a financial penalty of $250 million and for the ex-president, Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric to be “banned from ever running a business in New York again, among other things,” as the outlet points out.
Donald Trump’s eldest daughter is asking for a delay in a $250m civil trial as “other individuals were responsible” for allegedly fraudulent financial statements. https://t.co/88RrFrSRJO
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) March 9, 2023
That result would be “extremely embarrassing” for the Trumps, which is probably why both “Don Sr. and his eldest daughter have asked for the start date to be delayed,” Vanity Fair adds.
For his part, lawyers for the ex-president (and current presidential candidate) have argued that the evidence “would take 11,000 hours to review, and that the trial should be pushed back six months.” Regarding Ivanka, VF adds, her legal team took a “slightly different approach.”
Ivanka Trump went with the tried and true defense when people start trying to save themselves. She blamed her father and brothers for the fraud.
https://t.co/C6aU2t6lVb via @politicususa
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 8, 2023
As per the Independent, in court documents, Ms. Trump’s attorneys argue that the “fraud complaint filed last year against her and her codefendants” by New York attorney general Letitia James “does not contain a single allegation that Ms. Trump directly or indirectly created, prepared, reviewed, or certified any of her father’s financial statements.” Her lawyers wrote, “Other individuals were responsible for those tasks.”
The “other individuals” accused in the case are her father and brothers (which would make this come off awkwardly!) The main takeaway from The Independent was that Ivanka threw not only her siblings, but also her father “under the bus.”
In addition, Ivanka's lawyers are arguing that the lawsuit does not include one allegation in which "Ms. Trump directly or indirectly created, prepared, reviewed, or certified any of her father's financial statements," when James' office has clearly accused her of being a part of the alleged scam.
The AG's office claims in the suit that all three Trump children "knowingly participated" in the scheme. Regarding Ivanka specifically, the lawsuit notes her involvement in "securing loans to buy Florida and Chicago properties in 2012, loans that were issued in part due to false financial statements," as Vanity Fair writes.
