Judge Arthur Engoron ruled from the bench Friday morning that the former First Daughter has to appear in court to testify about what happened in the Trump Organization over the years that her father was wildly exaggerating assets to get loans and then turning around and giving a completely different set of numbers to the IRS. ABC News:
Ivanka Trump must appear to testify at her father’s fraud trial, Judge Arthur Engoron decided from the bench Friday morning.
“I want to see her in person. That is how we prefer testimony,” Engoron said after denying Ivanka Trump’s motion to quash the trial subpoenas she was served.
While Ivanka Trump was not in attendance at Friday’s hearing, her lawyer Bennet Moskowitz argued that the state’s justification for bringing Ivanka to the courtroom “falls on its face.”
I think he probably said “fails” on its face and the reporter misheard it. Or, being a Trump lawyer, who knows? If there’s one thing people who read legal blogs agree on, nobody has seen the kind of Bizarro World law and motion pleadings that these people file with the court. They are embarrassingly awful and have been called out as such.
Characterizing the state’s argument as “a bridge too far,” Moskowitz reiterated that Ivanka neither lives nor has done business in New York since 2017.
State attorney Kevin Wallace defended the subpoenas by arguing Ivanka Trump was a former Trump Organization executive who was the main contact with lenders for Trump’s Washington D.C. Old Post Office hotel. Wallace added that Ivanka Trump still owns properties in New York and operates business here.
Ruling from the bench after a short break, Engoron found that the state presented sufficient evidence to prove that Ivanka does business in New York.
“Ms. Trump owns property in New York and has done business in New York,” he said.
Engoron added that her testimony should not be scheduled before next Wednesday to allow her lawyers to appeal his ruling.
“A trial is a search for the truth, and the law is entitled to every person’s evidence,” Engoron said.
“Even if they’re spoiled rotten pampered rich a-holes unused to dealing with unpleasant realities,” is the end of that thought, most probably, he just didn’t articulate it. It’s good that the judge allowed for time to appeal because I’m sure Ivanka’s lawyers will jump through every procedural hoop that they can as a delay tactic. Why they would bother, nobody knows. It was cut and dried from the beginning that Ivanka couldn’t evade testifying in this trial.
So Ivanka now has to interrupt her social calendar and go to court. Darn. And she was just getting back in the swing of things, appearing at Kim Kardashian’s birthday party on the 21st. Now dreary reality calls.
As the World turns, I confess I grew up in a big family, so how Ivanka walks this mine field
I’m very interested.
Disfunctional family writ large,
If only Faulkner was still alive, to put ink to paper. It’s Almost Gatsby surreal.
but it’s real.
I guess she’ll have to reschedule that hair and nails appointment. The horror! The inhumanity!
not only that Scott, I think Jared talked, remember and this is important, never and I mean never talk to an officer of the Court without a lawyer, lying to Federal agent is a Felony. Something has to give,
I think someone is going to give sworn testimony
just me, I think Ivanka could blow this up.
Just how f*ckin’ stupid is Ivanka’s lawyer? “She neither lives nor has done business in New York since 2017.” And that has exactly what to do with the reason she’s being called to testify? You know, when she was part of the Trump Family Business *IN* New York for a couple of decades prior to 2017 and *presumably* had some knowledge of what Daddy was doing in that business.
I mean, hundreds of people get called to testify on matters that have nothing to do with their CURRENT status.
For instance, a Mr Jacob Doe is on trial in Poughkeepsie for being a serial killer, starting in 2000 and only being caught in 2021. At his trial, the defense has called a Mr Lawrence Smith to testify and the first question the defense attorney has is “Mr Smith, you lived next door to Mr Doe for 15 years, from 2002 to 2017, is that correct?” Now, Mr Smith might not want to testify here because he’s been living in Tempe, Arizona since 2022 but, presumably, the defense attorney is trying to present a “character witness” who never saw or heard anything remotely suspicious in the years he lived next to Mr Doe (and, if the defense attorney is halfway capable–unlike the attorneys working for anyone named Trump seem to be–he’ll make sure that Mr Smith won’t have ever suspected there was anything unusual about Mr Doe before calling him as a character witness). The prosecutor, of course, will try to pick apart Mr Smith’s testimony to find the slightest hint that Mr Smith did, in fact, have some suspicions, even if he didn’t feel they were actionable. The point, of course, is that Mr Smith hasn’t lived in Poughkeepsie or anywhere near Mr Doe for years but the lawyers want to know about the time the man DID live there.
Besides, she still owns apartments in Manhattan (last I looked that is in NY) and is, in fact, still doing business there. Yeah, it makes no difference where she actually resides but her lawyers are being a bit disingenuous with their rationale.
I hear the anger in your words
I just don’t understand the words..
I’m pretty sure Mr Smith won’t be on the stand
he’s a Prosecuting Attorney.
As for the Statute of Limitation, I get it.
but don’t pretend wrong is made right by a calendar. and dude leave Pookepsie alone,
New York, New York
it’s a hellava town
the Battery’s up,,,,,
you are arguing with what appears to be a hypothetical case, and has nothing to do with Jack Smith.