Left: Ivanka Trump (Image via AP, zz/Raoul Gatchalian/STAR MAX/IPx 2020); Right: Justice Arthur Engoron (YouTube/ Forbes screengrab)
Ivanka Trump late Wednesday filed a motion to appeal a recent court order that forces her to testify in her father’s ongoing civil fraud trial in Manhattan.
Last Friday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron acceded to a request from the state to have the former president’s oldest daughter, who is one of the few adult Trumps not named in the lawsuit, testify because she “remains financially and professionally intertwined” in her family’s namesake business empire.
The $250 million civil fraud lawsuit was brought against Trump, his children, and the Trump Organization in September 2022 by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and aims to essentially kick numerous Trump-related entities out of the Empire State.
Originally named in the lawsuit, Ivanka Trump was dismissed from the litigation in June. Her father and her brothers, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump remain named defendants.
“A trial is a search for the truth, and the law is entitled to every person’s evidence,” Engoron said in a bench ruling while noting that he would delay scheduling her testimony to give the witness time to appeal. Days later, the judge scheduled her testimony for Nov. 8.
“This appeal is taken from each and every part of the order insofar as it applies to Ms. Trump,” the terse notice of appeal reads, referring to the Oct. 27 bench ruling and Oct. 30 scheduling order.
The majority of Ivanka Trump’s 23-page filing obtained by Law&Crime is a lengthy transcript of the proceedings on Oct. 27 in Engoron’s courtroom.
Ivanka Trump’s attorneys have unsuccessfully argued that New York is trying to make up for not being able to depose her previously.
“Why not depose her during discovery?” her attorney Bennet J. Moskowitz, asked last week. “Why not depose her after she was dismissed from the case? They had plenty of time to do that.”
Moskowitz previously accused James of improperly issuing subpoenas, compelling her to testify because they were issued to three entities and listed Ivanka Trump as the relevant witness instead of being addressed to and served on Ivanka Trump herself.
The Wednesday appeal re-raises the defective subpoena argument and other issues, including “[w]hether the Supreme Court of the State of New York County of New York has jurisdiction over Ms. Trump, a non-party, non-domiciliary, and non-resident.”
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James says she is seeking Ivanka Trump’s testimony due to her knowledge of facts relevant to the case. Ivanka Trump’s defense team has said James is mainly interested in creating a media frenzy.
In September, Engoron sided with James in a partial motion for summary judgment on many of the basic facts of the case. In that ruling, he found that Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, several of their top lieutenants, and various corporate organizations that comprise the Trump family business committed fraud.
Several key issues, however, remain outstanding – including what will ultimately happen to the Trump Organization’s business licenses and the size of the disgorgement, or fine, Trump will have to pay.
The nexus of the fraudulent scheme, Engoron found, was how the 45th president and his company inflated his net worth and grossly overvalued their assets on years’ worth of financial paperwork to bilk banks and insurance companies so they could “transact business.”
The underlying investigation by James’ office dates to 2019 and is premised on sworn congressional testimony from Trump’s former friend and fixer Michael Cohen in 2019. Under questioning by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, Cohen claimed the Trump Organization inflated assets to insurance companies and that the company’s tax returns likely contained similar financial improprieties.
Trump has been held in contempt for failing to properly respond to subpoenas in the case – though the financial punishment was later set aside after curing the defects in those subpoena responses. He and two of his children later tried and failed to have the overarching lawsuit transferred to a different judge. Also in September, Trump sued Engoron. Earlier this month, Trump dropped that lawsuit.
Donald Trump, Jr. testified in the civil fraud trial late Wednesday.
Nothing major came of the first Trump son’s first day of testimony, according to a liveblog by NBC News. In sometimes jocular testimony, he answered basic questions about his professional background and financial terms.
Trump Jr. said he could define GAAP as “generally accepted accounting principles” because it “was accounting 101 in the late 1990s.” Other than that, he said, “I know nothing about GAAP” and that the company has accountants who are paid to know how the standard accounting system works.
Asked about another business acronym, ASC, which stands for accounting standards codification, and whether that system applied to the statements of financial condition on which his father committed fraud, Trump Jr. answered in the negative.
“I have no understanding,” he replied, laughing.
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