At 10 AM ET, Ivanka Trump will overcome the personal hardship of appearing during a school week and take the stand to testify concerning the massive levels of fraud committed by Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and other officers of the Trump Organization.
Unlike her father and brothers, Ivanka is not personally at risk, since most of her involvement in the actions under investigation were protected by the statute of limitations. That means that, unlike other other members of her family, she may still be able to conduct business in New York when this is over. Also, she may actually be concerned about avoiding perjury.
This is likely to be the last time that anyone named “Trump” takes the stand in Judge Arthur Engoron’s courtroom. Trump’s legal team chose not to direct any questions to other family members after the state completed its questioning on previous days, and it seems highly unlikely that any will be called again. Once Ivanka completes her testimony, the state is expected to rest its case.
But don’t run off when she leaves the stand. There could be fireworks before the day is over.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 4:09:19 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
A series of flaps with Trump’s legal team.
First, Alani Habba objects to Solomon showing an email in which Ivanka tells Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg that “it doesn't get any better” than the deal they are being offered from Deutsche Bank. According to Habba, the email was never sent.
Solomon says the email was sent. Habba says it wasn’t.
State attorney Kevin Wallace, who led the questioning of Donald Trump on Monday, interjects that this is a document that was introduced by the defense. So that was fun.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 4:03:12 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
This 2011 statement is one that Engoron found to be fraudulent in the pre-trial phase of this case.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 4:01:23 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
In addition to that $3B in wealth—excluding brand value—Trump also had to guarantee that he had assets on hand to completely cover the principal and interest of the loan. For that, he got the money at the Prime Rate.
Heck of a deal, if you don’t mind lying.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:57:55 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Just because Ivanka is a calmer witness doesn’t make this evidence any less damning.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:57:20 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
During his testimony, Donald Trump repeatedly maintained that it didn’t matter how his properties were valued because there was a nearly limitless in his brand. Turns out, all the brand talk doesn’t matter at all. “Excluding” would be the keyword in this deal. Also, $3 B is well above estimates of Trump’s wealth at that time.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:54:32 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
It’s easy to see why James named Ivanka as a defendant. However, because she didn’t return to a position at the Trump Organization after leaving the White House, it wouldn’t have been possible to use these deals in a case against Ivanka.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:52:32 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
“Project Eagle.”
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:50:08 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:49:11 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Kise continues to object on the basis that these memos and emails are from 2011 and beyond the statute of limitations. He accuses Engoron of giving the state “extraordinary latitude” in presenting their case.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:47:14 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
What we’ve seen so far is that three banks, including Deutsche Bank, turned down financing for Doral. In fact, they turned it down before even getting far into negotiations. And it seems that those banks had Trump’s financial statements.
But then Rosemary Vrablic at the special section of Deutsche for ultra-wealthy clients made the deal after a nudge from Jared and Ivanka and after Trump sent in a set of guarantees about his personal wealth and liquid assets. In other words: It was all heavily dependent on the statement of financial condition that Trump testified didn’t matter.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:40:54 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Even Deutsche Bank turned down the deal on the first pass.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:39:40 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
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UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:37:55 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Kise raises an objection, and Lisa Rubin explains Solomon’s apparent strategy here. The state is running through a series of failed attempts to secure financing at Doral to make it clear how important the eventual deal with Deutsche Bank was. Not only did that deal save Trump a huge amount of interest, but the whole project might not have been possible without it.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:34:35 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Solomon moves on to another potential source for financing at Doral and starts showing documents related to Meridian Capital.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:32:58 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
That first “I don’t recall” seems to have been the start of a series regarding this one potential loan at Doral. Not sure if there is fire here, but things are starting to seem a bit smoky.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:29:54 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
That letter generated Ivanka’s first “I don’t recall.” It seems that the loan with the banker she sent it to was never completed.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:28:59 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
There’s been considerable discussion of Trump’s intention for Doral, which includes “repositioning it as a luxury property” and “acting as a stalking horse” for another bidder. And I’m going to confess that I don’t understand either what Trump was trying to do or what Solomon is trying to establish. Questioning continues.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:26:56 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Doral is back at the center of the questioning, which makes it seem like Solomon is moving the questions around to keep Ivanka from getting too comfortable. For the first time, he produces a document. It’s an email between Ivanka and a banker where she promises that Donald Trump would provide his financial guarantees through “hard mail.”
Trump does not like email, and this is probably another example of why: They’re too easy to discover.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:22:57 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
It’s hard to overestimate how important this connection to Vrablic became for Trump. Through the connection to Jared and Ivanka, he managed to get financing at just 2% (2%!) at a time when Deutshe’s rate for commercial loans was 8%. This was through the special section of the bank devoted to making extremely wealthy people happy. Which … yeah, how nice that super-rich people get an enormously better rate.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:20:21 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
It’s clear that Ivanka has watched her own 2022 deposition in preparing to testify today. But just to be sure she doesn’t cross herself up, her answer to several questions has been to just reference what she said in that deposition.
She’s intent on not saying anything that puts her at risk of contradicting her past testimony.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:16:20 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Getting down to business.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:15:42 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Other than being hard to hear, Ivanka seems both more comfortable on the stand and more willing to answer questions. She doesn't launch into rants about James, or shrug off everything by claiming she can’t remember. A world away from her brothers to this point.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:13:58 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Twice now Engoron has encouraged Ivanka to speak up. He inserts himself again to ask her to move closer to the microphone.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:13:06 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
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UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:10:32 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Solomon runs through a series of projects in which Ivanka was involved.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:07:18 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Ivanka is being questioned by state’s attorney Louis Solomon. First questions are just personal information, questions about her education, and questions about her positions at the Trump Organization as well as her other businesses.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:03:34 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Ivanka goes straight to the witness stand and is sworn in. Here we go.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:02:22 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Ivanka is not sitting at the defense table. As a “third party witness,” she’s not a defendant and was called by prosecutors.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:01:14 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Ivanka and Team Trump just walked in. Folks are getting settled and getting their laptops out. Alania Habba’s laptop has a huge ad for her law firm covering the whole lid—you can no longer see that it’s a gaming laptop with multi-color LEDS glowing through the case.
Aww.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 2:53:50 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
To be clear: Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump are all on the list of potential witnesses who could be called by the defense. But because the defense didn’t direct any questions at them following the state’s questioning, it seems unlikely the defense would risk putting them on the stand again.
Ivanka is not on the defense list of potential witnesses.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 2:52:20 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
As usual, the Attorney General’s team arrives first. AG Letitia James takes up a position in the front row.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 2:48:11 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
When the state says it has completed its case, expect a flurry of motions from Trump’s side of the aisle, including a motion to dismiss. Lead attorney Chris Kise may also move for a mistrial, which should be interesting.
Unlike her father and brothers, Ivanka is not personally at risk, since most of her involvement in the actions under investigation were protected by the statute of limitations. That means that, unlike other other members of her family, she may still be able to conduct business in New York when this is over. Also, she may actually be concerned about avoiding perjury.
This is likely to be the last time that anyone named “Trump” takes the stand in Judge Arthur Engoron’s courtroom. Trump’s legal team chose not to direct any questions to other family members after the state completed its questioning on previous days, and it seems highly unlikely that any will be called again. Once Ivanka completes her testimony, the state is expected to rest its case.
But don’t run off when she leaves the stand. There could be fireworks before the day is over.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 4:09:19 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
A series of flaps with Trump’s legal team.
First, Alani Habba objects to Solomon showing an email in which Ivanka tells Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg that “it doesn't get any better” than the deal they are being offered from Deutsche Bank. According to Habba, the email was never sent.
Solomon says the email was sent. Habba says it wasn’t.
State attorney Kevin Wallace, who led the questioning of Donald Trump on Monday, interjects that this is a document that was introduced by the defense. So that was fun.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 4:03:12 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
This 2011 statement is one that Engoron found to be fraudulent in the pre-trial phase of this case.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 4:01:23 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
In addition to that $3B in wealth—excluding brand value—Trump also had to guarantee that he had assets on hand to completely cover the principal and interest of the loan. For that, he got the money at the Prime Rate.
Heck of a deal, if you don’t mind lying.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:57:55 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Just because Ivanka is a calmer witness doesn’t make this evidence any less damning.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:57:20 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
During his testimony, Donald Trump repeatedly maintained that it didn’t matter how his properties were valued because there was a nearly limitless in his brand. Turns out, all the brand talk doesn’t matter at all. “Excluding” would be the keyword in this deal. Also, $3 B is well above estimates of Trump’s wealth at that time.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:54:32 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
It’s easy to see why James named Ivanka as a defendant. However, because she didn’t return to a position at the Trump Organization after leaving the White House, it wouldn’t have been possible to use these deals in a case against Ivanka.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:52:32 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
“Project Eagle.”
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:50:08 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:49:11 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Kise continues to object on the basis that these memos and emails are from 2011 and beyond the statute of limitations. He accuses Engoron of giving the state “extraordinary latitude” in presenting their case.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:47:14 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
What we’ve seen so far is that three banks, including Deutsche Bank, turned down financing for Doral. In fact, they turned it down before even getting far into negotiations. And it seems that those banks had Trump’s financial statements.
But then Rosemary Vrablic at the special section of Deutsche for ultra-wealthy clients made the deal after a nudge from Jared and Ivanka and after Trump sent in a set of guarantees about his personal wealth and liquid assets. In other words: It was all heavily dependent on the statement of financial condition that Trump testified didn’t matter.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:40:54 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Even Deutsche Bank turned down the deal on the first pass.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:39:40 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Daily Kos can't be bought. We don't have a billionaire patron or big corporate backers that come with purse strings. We are the country's largest independent news and activism hub because of our grassroots donors. Donate $3 to Daily Kos.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:37:55 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Kise raises an objection, and Lisa Rubin explains Solomon’s apparent strategy here. The state is running through a series of failed attempts to secure financing at Doral to make it clear how important the eventual deal with Deutsche Bank was. Not only did that deal save Trump a huge amount of interest, but the whole project might not have been possible without it.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:34:35 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Solomon moves on to another potential source for financing at Doral and starts showing documents related to Meridian Capital.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:32:58 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
That first “I don’t recall” seems to have been the start of a series regarding this one potential loan at Doral. Not sure if there is fire here, but things are starting to seem a bit smoky.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:29:54 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
That letter generated Ivanka’s first “I don’t recall.” It seems that the loan with the banker she sent it to was never completed.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:28:59 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
There’s been considerable discussion of Trump’s intention for Doral, which includes “repositioning it as a luxury property” and “acting as a stalking horse” for another bidder. And I’m going to confess that I don’t understand either what Trump was trying to do or what Solomon is trying to establish. Questioning continues.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:26:56 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Doral is back at the center of the questioning, which makes it seem like Solomon is moving the questions around to keep Ivanka from getting too comfortable. For the first time, he produces a document. It’s an email between Ivanka and a banker where she promises that Donald Trump would provide his financial guarantees through “hard mail.”
Trump does not like email, and this is probably another example of why: They’re too easy to discover.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:22:57 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
It’s hard to overestimate how important this connection to Vrablic became for Trump. Through the connection to Jared and Ivanka, he managed to get financing at just 2% (2%!) at a time when Deutshe’s rate for commercial loans was 8%. This was through the special section of the bank devoted to making extremely wealthy people happy. Which … yeah, how nice that super-rich people get an enormously better rate.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:20:21 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
It’s clear that Ivanka has watched her own 2022 deposition in preparing to testify today. But just to be sure she doesn’t cross herself up, her answer to several questions has been to just reference what she said in that deposition.
She’s intent on not saying anything that puts her at risk of contradicting her past testimony.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:16:20 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Getting down to business.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:15:42 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Other than being hard to hear, Ivanka seems both more comfortable on the stand and more willing to answer questions. She doesn't launch into rants about James, or shrug off everything by claiming she can’t remember. A world away from her brothers to this point.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:13:58 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Twice now Engoron has encouraged Ivanka to speak up. He inserts himself again to ask her to move closer to the microphone.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:13:06 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Daily Kos is relying more and more on the support of readers and activists to cover our expenses. Can you support the work of Daily Kos by making a donation of $5 today?
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:10:32 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Solomon runs through a series of projects in which Ivanka was involved.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:07:18 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Ivanka is being questioned by state’s attorney Louis Solomon. First questions are just personal information, questions about her education, and questions about her positions at the Trump Organization as well as her other businesses.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:03:34 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Ivanka goes straight to the witness stand and is sworn in. Here we go.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:02:22 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Ivanka is not sitting at the defense table. As a “third party witness,” she’s not a defendant and was called by prosecutors.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 3:01:14 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Ivanka and Team Trump just walked in. Folks are getting settled and getting their laptops out. Alania Habba’s laptop has a huge ad for her law firm covering the whole lid—you can no longer see that it’s a gaming laptop with multi-color LEDS glowing through the case.
Aww.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 2:53:50 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
To be clear: Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump are all on the list of potential witnesses who could be called by the defense. But because the defense didn’t direct any questions at them following the state’s questioning, it seems unlikely the defense would risk putting them on the stand again.
Ivanka is not on the defense list of potential witnesses.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 2:52:20 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
As usual, the Attorney General’s team arrives first. AG Letitia James takes up a position in the front row.
UPDATE: Wednesday, Nov 8, 2023 · 2:48:11 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
When the state says it has completed its case, expect a flurry of motions from Trump’s side of the aisle, including a motion to dismiss. Lead attorney Chris Kise may also move for a mistrial, which should be interesting.