New York attorney general Letitia James became thelatesttarget of Donald Trump’s Justice Department on Thursday when she was charged with one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution for allegedly claiming a home in Norfolk, Virginia was her second residence. James has denied the allegations; in a statement, her attorney, Abbe Lowell, said the case “is being driven by President Trump’s desire for revenge,” and vowed to “fight these charges in every process allowed in the law.” If the claims against James sound familiar, it’s probably because they’re very similar to the ones brought against Dr. Lisa Cook, the Fed Board of Governors member Trump is trying to oust. And if James’s lawyer sounds familiar, it’s probably because he is also representing Cook. Oh, and his past clients have included Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Herewith, a primer on the go-to defense attorney.
Wait, wait, wait, before we get to Lowell, what’s going on with James?
James was indicted by a grand jury in Virginia on Thursday, and charged with mortgage fraud, having allegedly claimed that a house in Norfolk, Virginia was her second home—which allowed her to obtain more favorable loan terms—but which she rented out. Prosecutors claim James saved $18,933 with the lower interest rate. If convicted, she could face up to 30 years in prison and pay a fine up to $1 million for each count. (Similarly, Cook was charged with allegedly claiming two different homes were her primary residence, allegations she has denied, and which appear to be rapidly falling apart.) In August, attorney general Pam Bondi appointed a “special attorney” to investigate claims against James brought by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte—who, in that same capacity, alleged wrongdoing by Cook. After prosecutors concluded they did not have sufficient evidence to win a conviction against James, and the acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia resigned under pressure from the president, Trump named one of his former personal attorneys, Lindsey Halligan, as acting prosecutor, despite the fact she has…no prosecutorial experience. In her short time on the job, Halligan first brought charges against former FBI director James Comey, and then James.
Like his father and grandfather before him, BarronTrump seems to have a keen business sense. The son of Donald Trump and Melania Trump is enjoying a particularly lucrative 2025: at just 19 years of age, the youngest member of the Trump clan now has a larger fortune than his own mother, thanks to cryptocurrencies.
Due to the sale of tokens, Barron’s fortune has jumped by $80 million in recent months and now totals $150 million, according to Forbes. On top of this, he is said to hold almost 2.3 billion tokens, which he could resell for $525 million.
The first of the Trump clan to take an interest in the cryptocurrency market, Barron convinced his family to set up his own company in the field, World Liberty Financial, which came into being at the end of 2024. Barron spent his summer “meeting with business partners” and “striking deals,” writes People, before quietly resuming classes at New York University’s Washington, DC campus.
Donald Trump’s second term in the White House has largely benefited his children, writes Forbes. In one year, Donald Trump Jr. added a zero to his fortune, which now totals $500 million. The cryptocurrency market and various contracts signed, including some in Qatar, have been even more beneficial for Eric Trump, who has seen his bank account grow from $40 million to $750 million over the same period. Ivanka Trump, for her part, is said to have $100 million—which is trifle, compared with the billion dollars held by her husband, Jared Kushner, a businessman specializing in real estate.
The man who has benefited most from buying and selling cryptocurrencies remains the President of the United States. His investments earned him two billion dollars, out of the three billion in profits he made over the year. Jumping 70%, his fortune now stands at $7.3 billion. The Republican moves up 118 places in the Forbes 400 ranking (listing the richest men in America) to the 201st position.
For her part, Melania has a wallet worth $20 million, which has grown thanks to “classic means for a First Lady (books, conferences, documentaries),” the media outlet notes. Not to be left unmoved by the promise of cryptocurrency, she has launched her own meme coin, $MELANIA, a speculative token whose aesthetic is based on a meme and whose value is decided by buyers. Listed on the stock exchange, its value is estimated at $200 million.
Ivanka Trump is set to return to the national stage. According to her spokesperson and two sources close to the Trump campaign, Donald Trump’s eldest daughter is planning to attend next week’s 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to personally show support for her father. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Ivanka’s presence at the convention would mark a dramatic return to the campaign trail that she has conspicuously avoided this election cycle. She famously skipped her father’s low-energy campaign launch at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022 and released a statement at the time declaring: “I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics.” She also did not attend his recent criminal trial in Manhattan, which saw him convicted of 34 felony counts.
To some observers, Ivanka has served as something of a political weather vane. Early in the GOP primary, many interpreted her absence from the campaign as a sign that Trump faced insurmountable headwinds: Trump-endorsed candidates were blown out in the 2022 midterms; billionaire Republican donors like Ken Griffin and Stephen Schwarzman announced that they would support a non-Trump candidate in 2024; and Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post splashed a photo of DeSantis on the cover with the headline “DeFuture.” (Meanwhile, the Postmocked Trump’s 2024 rollout with the front-page teaser “Florida Man Makes Announcement,” story on page 26.)
That was then. Next week Trump will be coronated in Milwaukee. Democrats, meanwhile, remain paralyzed over what to do about Joe Biden’s evident cognitive decline and failing candidacy. The Trump campaign is, privately at least, feeling confident that Trump will win in a landslide if Biden stays in the race. In other words, Ivanka would be jumping on a bandwagon that looks destined for victory. One source said Trump is annoyed that Ivanka would wait until now to get involved. “He didn’t like how she took credit for things and disappeared when things got tough,” the source said. But another source close to Ivanka disputed this, saying Trump himself has been asking Ivanka to speak at the convention. Ivanka’s polished mien would presumably appeal to independents and women, voters with whom Trump polls poorly. However, Ivanka’s spokesperson confirmed that she will not be speaking.
Coincidentally or not, Ivanka has been boosting her public profile recently. On July 2, podcaster Lex Fridman released a three-hour interview with Ivanka (Fridman said the two became friends over their shared love of reading philosophers like Joseph Campbell, Marcus Aurelius, Alan Watts, and Viktor Frankl). Ivanka reiterated on the podcast that she doesn’t plan to formally join the campaign. “Politics, it’s a pretty dark world…. It’s just really at odds with what feels good for me as a human being,” she said.
But sources I talked to wonder if Ivanka would be able to resist the pull of power should Trump return to the White House. After all, her husband, Jared Kushner, could be under consideration to serve as Trump’s secretary of state.
This article was updated with confirmation that Ivanka Trump will not give a speech at the convention.
Tonight was the final night of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s pre-wedding. And celebs were all decked up in Indian attires, looking pretty. Check out the pictures below…
Ivanka Trump at New York State Supreme Court in New York on November 8, 2023. Photo: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Over the past few years, Ivanka Trump has made it very clear that she wants nothing to do with any of the headaches associated with her father Donald Trump’s business and political operations. Ivanka worked in the Trump Organization and then her father’s White House administration for the entirety of her adult life, but she and her husband, Jared Kushner, backed away as his term ended. Then, in November 2022, she skipped her dad’s 2024 campaign announcement and posted a statement online declaring, “I do not plan to be involved in politics. While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.”
But it turns out she’s not averse to the perks that come with her dad’s political career, like letting his super-PAC cover her legal bills.
Business Insider reviewed Federal Election Commission records and found that Donald Trump’s Save America PAC spent a total of $2.3 million last year for two law firms that solely represented Ivanka:
In 2023, Save America disbursed a total of $1,303,667.11 to the law firm Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders and $1,042,479 to the firm Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel, & Frederick.
Both firms represented Ivanka Trump in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ sprawling lawsuit against the Trump Organization, Donald Trump, his three eldest children, and several executives over its finances. The attorney general’s office alleged that the firm misrepresented its finances to obtain favorable tax, bank-loan, and insurance rates.
The PAC spent another $5.3 million on a law firm that represented Ivanka along with her father, her brothers Don Jr. and Eric, and the Trump Organization. None of the suits that incurred the fees were related to Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign (unless you subscribe to the idea that every bad thing happening in Trump’s life is the result of political persecution).
Trump founded the Save America PAC days after his 2020 election loss, and repeatedly solicited donated by telling supporters that he needed money for “election defense.” But much of the money Trump collected has gone to covering his legal expenses in various cases that have nothing to do with bogus “election fraud” claims. Save America and MAGA PAC, another political group controlled by Trump, have spent more than $50 million on legal fees, according to Business Insider.
It doesn’t appear that Ivanka really needed PAC donor money to cover her $2.3 million legal bills, as she and Jared have an estimated net worth of over $1 billion. And it certainly seems hypocritical for Ivanka to take money from her father’s political action committee after she dramatically declared that she wants nothing to do with politics. But in her defense, even obscenely wealthy people like free stuff. They essentially drove a dump truck full of money up to her house. She’s not made of stone!
It’s that time of year again: Leaders, business titans, philanthropists and celebs descend on the Swiss ski town of Davos to discuss the fate of the world and do deals/shots with the global elite at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
This year’s theme: “Rebuilding trust.” Prescient, given the dumpster fire the world seems to be turning into lately, both literally (climate change) and figuratively (where to even begin?).
As always, the Davos great and good will be rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s absolute top-drawer dirtbags. While there’s been a distinct dearth of Russian oligarchs in attendance at the WEF since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Donald Trump will be tied up with the Iowa caucus, there are still plenty of would-be autocrats, dictators, thugs, extortionists, misery merchants, spoilers and political pariahs on the Davos guest list.
1. Argentine President Javier Milei
Known as the Donald Trump of Argentina — and also as “The Madman” and “The Wig” — the chainsaw-wielding Javier Milei has it all: a fanatical supporter base, background as a TV shock jock, libertarian anarcho-capitalist policies (except when it comes to abortion), and a … memorable … hairdo.
A long-time Davos devotee (he’s been attending the WEF for years), Milei’s libertarian policies have turned from kooky thought bubbles to concerning reality after he was elected president of South America’s second-largest economy, riding a wave of discontent with the political establishment (sound familiar?). The question now is how far Milei will go in delivering on his campaign promises to hack back public service and state spending, close the Argentine central bank and drop the peso.
If you do get stuck talking to Milei in the congress center or on the slopes, here are some conversation starters …
Rumor has it that Mohammed bin Salman will make his first in-person WEF appearance at this year’s event, accompanied by a giant posse of top Saudi officials.
It’s the ultimate redemption arc for the repressive authoritarian ruler of a country with an appalling human rights record — who, according to United States intelligence, personally ordered the brutal assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Rumor has it that Mohammed bin Salman will make his first in-person WEF appearance at this year’s event | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Perhaps MBS would still be a WEF pariah — consigned to rubbing shoulders with mere B-listers at his own Davos in the desert — if it were not for that other one-time Davos-darling-turned-persona-non-grata: Russian President Vladimir Putin. By launching his invasion of Ukraine, which killed thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of troops, Putin managed to push the West back into MBS’ embrace. Guess it’s all just oil under the bridge now.
Here’s a piece of free advice: Try to avoid being caught getting a signature MBS fist-bump. Unless, of course, you’re the next person on our list …
3. Jared Kushner, founder of Affinity Partners
Jared Kushner is the closest anyone on the mountain is likely to come to Trump, the former — and possibly future — billionaire baron-cum-anti-elitist president of the United States of America.
On the one hand, a chat with The Donald’s son-in-law in the days just after the Iowa caucus would probably be quite a get for the Davos devotee. On other hand … it’s Jared Kushner.
The 43-year-old, who is married to Ivanka Trump and served as a senior adviser to the former president during his time in office, leveraged his stint in the White House to build up a lucrative consulting career, focused mainly on the Middle East.
Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, is largely funded through Gulf countries. That includes a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, led by bin Salman — which was, coincidentally, pushed through despite objections by the crown prince’s own advisers.
Kushner struck up a friendship and alliance with MBS during his father-in-law’s term in office, raising major conflict-of-interest suspicions for the Trump administration — especially when the then-U.S. president refused to condemn the Saudi leader in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, despite the CIA concluding he was directly involved.
Running Azerbaijan is something of a family business for the Aliyevs — Ilham assumed power after the death of his father, Heydar Aliyev, an ex-Soviet KGB officer who ruled the country for decades. And the junior Aliyev changed Azerbaijan’s constitution to pave the path to power for the next generation of his family — and appointed his own wife as vice president to boot.
5. Chinese Premier Li Qiang
Li Qiang is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ultra-loyal right-hand man, and will represent his boss and his country at the World Economic Forum this year.
Li’s claim to infamy: imposing a brutal lockdown on the entirety of Shanghai for weeks during the coronavirus pandemic, which trapped its 25 million-plus inhabitants at home while many struggled to get food, tend to their animals or seek medical help — and tanking the city’s economy in the process.
Li’s also the guy selling (and whitewashing) China’s Uyghur policy in the Islamic world. In case you need a refresher, China has detained Uyghurs, who are mostly Muslim, in internment camps in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where there have been allegations of torture, slavery, forced sterilization, sexual abuse and brainwashing. China’s actions have been branded genocide by the U.S. State Department, and as potential crimes against humanity by the United Nations.
Li Qiang will represent his boss and his country at the World Economic Forum this year | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
Nicknamed “the Napoleon of Africa” in a nod to his campaign to seize power in 1994, Paul Kagame has ruled over the land of a thousand hills since. He’s often praised for overseeing what is probably the greatest development success story of modern Africa; he’s also a dictator.
Forced from office in 2018 by mass protests following the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, Fico rose from the political ashes to become Slovakian prime minister for the fourth time late last year. His Smer party ran a Putin-friendly campaign, pledging to end all military support for Ukraine.
Slovakian courts are still working through multiple organized crime cases stemming from the last time Smer was in power, involving oligarchs alleged to have profited from state contracts; former top police brass and senior military intelligence officers; and parliamentarians from all three parties in Fico’s new coalition government.
8. President of Hungary Katalin Novák
Katalin Novák, elected Hungarian president in 2022, must’ve pulled the short straw: she’s been sent to Davos to fly the flag for the EU’s pariah state. Luckily, the 46-year-old is used to being the odd one out at a shindig: She’s both the first woman and the youngest-ever Hungarian president.
It’s her thoughts on the gender pay gap, though, that ought to get attention at the famously male-dominated World Economic Forum: In an infamous video posted back in late 2020, Novák told the sisterhood: “Do not believe that women have to constantly compete with men. Do not believe that every waking moment of our lives must be spent with comparing ourselves to men, and that we should work in at least the same position, for at least the same pay they do.” That’s us told.
9. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet
You may be surprised to see Hun Manet on this list: The new, Western-educated Cambodian prime minister has been touted in some circles as a potential modernizer and reformer.
But Hun Manet is less a breath of fresh air and a lot more continuation of the same stale story. Having inherited his position from his father, the longtime autocrat Hun Sen, Hun Manet has shown no signs of wanting to reform or modernize Cambodia. While some say it’s too early to tell where he’ll land (given his dad’s still on the scene, along with his Communist loyalists), the fact is: Many hallmarks of autocracy are still present in Cambodia. Repression of the opposition? Check. Dodgy “elections”? Check. Widespread graft and clientelism? Check and check.
10. Qatar Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani
How has a small kingdom of 2.6 million inhabitants in the Persian Gulf managed to play a starring role in so many explosive scandals?
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani is the prime minister of Qatar, a country that’s played a starring role in many explosive scandals | Chris J. Ratcliffe/AFP via Getty Images
You’d think that sort of record would see Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani shunned by the world’s top brass. Nah! Just this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the Qatari leader and told him the U.S. was “deeply grateful for your ongoing leadership in this effort, for the tireless work which you undertook and that continues, to try to free the remaining hostages.”
See you on the slopes, Mohammed!
11. Polish President Andrzej Duda
When you compare Polish President Andrzej Duda to some of the others on this list, he doesn’t seem to measure up. He’s not a dictator running a violent petro-state, hasn’t invaded any neighbors or even wielded a chainsaw on stage.
But Duda is yesterday’s man. As the last one standing from Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice party that was swept out of office last year, Duda’s holding on for dear life to his own relevance, doing his best to act as a spoiler against the Donald Tusk-led government by wielding his veto powers and harboring convicted lawmakers. All of which is to say: When you catch up with President Duda at Davos, don’t assume he’s speaking for Poland.
12. Amin Nasser, CEO of Aramco
The Saudi Arabian state oil and gas company is Aramco — the world’s biggest energy firm — and Amin Nasser is its boss. If you read Aramco’s press releases, you’d be forgiven for assuming it is also the world’s biggest champion of the green energy transition. Spoiler alert: It’s far from it.
Exhibit A: Aramco is reportedly a top corporate polluter, with environment nongovernmental organization ClientEarth reporting that it accounts for more than 4 percent of the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1965. Exhibit B: Bloomberg reported in 2021 that it understated its carbon footprint by as much as 50 percent.
Nasser, meanwhile, has criticized the idea that climate action should mean countries “either shut down or slow down big time” their fossil fuel production. Say that to Al Gore’s face!
This article has been updated to reflect the fact Shou Zi Chew is no longer going to attend the World Economic Forum.
Dionisios Sturis, Peter Snowdon, Suzanne Lynch and Paul de Villepin contributed reporting.
Within days of Trump’s election, his key immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, was already gathering a group of loyal bureaucrats to start drafting executive orders. Civil servants who were veterans of the George W. Bush administration found the proposals to be so outlandishly impractical, if not also harmful to American interests and perhaps even illegal, that they assumed the ideas could never come to fruition. They were wrong. Over the next four years, lone children were loaded onto planes and sent back to the countries they had fled without so much as a notification to their families. Others were wrenched from their parents’ arms as a way of sending a message to other families abroad about what awaited them if they, too, tried to enter the United States.
If given another chance to realize his goals, Miller has essentially boasted in recent interviews that he would move even faster and more forcefully. And Trump, who’s been campaigning on the promise to finish the job he started on immigration policy, would fairly assume if he is reelected that harsh restrictions in that arena are precisely what the American people want. “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he declared during a speech in Iowa in September, referring to 1954’s offensively titled Operation Wetback, under which hundreds of thousands of people with Mexican ancestry were deported, including some who were American citizens.
Trump and other key fixtures of his time in office have refused to rule out trying to reinstate family separations. They have been explicit about their plans to send ICE agents back into the streets to make arrests (with help from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the National Guard), and finish their work on the wall. They say that they will reimpose the pandemic-related expulsion policy known as Title 42, which all but shut off access to asylum, and that they will expand the use of military-style camps to house people who are caught in the enforcement dragnet. They have laid out plans and legal rationales for major policy changes that they didn’t get around to the first time, such as ending birthright citizenship, a long-held goal of Trump’s. They’ve floated ideas such as screening would-be immigrants for Marxist views before granting them entry, and using the Alien and Sedition Acts in service of deportations. Trump and his advisers have also made clear that they intend to invoke the Insurrection Act to allow them to deploy the U.S. military to the border, and to use an extensive naval blockade between the United States and Latin America to fight the drug trade. That most drug smuggling occurs at legal ports of entry doesn’t matter to Trump and his team: They seem to have reasonably concluded that immigration restrictions don’t have to be effective to be celebrated by their base.
The breakneck pace of work during Miller’s White House tour was periodically hampered by worried bureaucrats attempting end runs around him, or by his most powerful detractors, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, whispering reservations into the president’s ear. But Trump’s daughter and son-in-law have left politics altogether, and Miller used Trump’s term to perfect strategies for disempowering anyone else who dared to challenge him. As for job applicants to work in a second Trump administration, Miller told Axios that being in lockstep with him on immigration issues would be “non-negotiable.” Others need not apply.
Those who choose to join Trump in this mission to slash immigration would do so knowing that they would face few consequences, if any, for how they go about it: Almost all of the administration officials who pushed aggressively for the most controversial policies of Trump’s term continue to enjoy successful careers.
The speed of Trump’s work on immigration can obscure its impact in real time. This is why Lucas Guttentag, a law professor at Stanford and Yale and a senior counselor on immigration issues in the Obama and Biden administrations, created a database with his students to log and track the more than 1,000 immigration-policy changes made during Trump’s years in office. Most remain in place. This is worth dwelling on. Trump’s time in office already represents a resurgence of old, disproven ideas about the inherent threat—physical, cultural, and economic—posed by immigrants. And if Trump does return to office, this moment may qualify less as a blip than an era: a period like previous ones when such misconceptions prevailed, and laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act and eugenics-based national-origins quotas ruled the day.
Returning Trump to the presidency would reopen wounds that have barely healed in the communities he has said he would target immediately. Recently, I stood outside a church in the Northeast that caters mostly to undocumented farmworkers, with a Catholic sister who oversees the parish’s programming. As we stood in the autumn light, I remarked on the picturesque scene around her place of worship and work. She replied by pointing in one direction, then another, then another, at the places where she said ICE agents used to hide out on Sunday mornings during the Trump administration, waiting to capture her congregants as they left Mass to go about their weekly errands at the laundromat and the grocery store.
Beyond the emotional impact of Trump’s return, the economy could also face a pummeling if the number of immigrant workers, legal and otherwise, were to drop. In a November 2022 speech, Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, detailed the harm from COVID-related dips in immigration, which left the country short an estimated 1 million workers.
America’s rightward shift on immigration is part of a global story in which Western countries are, in general, turning against immigrants. But the world tends to look to the United States as a guide for what sorts of checks on immigration are socially permissible. A new Trump administration would provide a pretty clear answer: just about any.
An anything-goes approach to immigration enforcement may indeed be what the country is left with if Trump succeeds in the next general election. “The first 100 days of the Trump administration will be pure bliss,” Stephen Miller told Axios, “followed by another four years of the most hard-hitting action conceivable.”
This article appears in the January/February 2024 print edition with the headline “The Specter of Family Separation.”
Trump plans to call Palm Beach real-estate broker Lawrence Moens at his NY fraud trial next week.
Moens has sworn Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and “kings” would pay $1B for the club, where he’s a member.
On Friday, the judge OK’d Moens’ testimony despite the state saying it will waste “an entire day.”
Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and “kings” would pay $1 billion dollars for Mar-a-Lago, according to a Palm Beach real-estate broker whom Donald Trump plans to call to testify next week, as an expert defense witness in his New York civil fraud trial.
“It’s like a fantasy list,” the broker, Lawrence Moens, said in a pre-trial deposition over the summer, describing the dozen-or-so ultra-billionaires he thinks would spring that high for the property.
“I could dream up anyone from Elon Musk to Bill Gates and everyone in between,” he told lawyers for the state attorney general’s office during the July deposition, previewing next week’s trial testimony. “Kings, emperors, heads of state.”
“If they want the best house in the country, that would be one of the top two or three that would be available if they were for sale,” he added, according to a transcript.
“I wish he’d let me sell it, but it’s not for sale,” he said.
Moens is scheduled to testify on Trump’s behalf Tuesday in the ongoing trial, where lawyers for state Attorney General Letitia James are trying to prove the former president exaggerated his net worth by as much as $3.6 billion a year in a decade’s worth of financial statements to banks, insurers and tax officials.
Mar-a-Lago is chief among those exaggerations.
Donald Trump allegedly inflated the value of his Palm Beach resort in financial documents by as much as $714 million.New York attorney general’s office
The AG’s office alleges that as part of an effort to trick banks into charging him better interest rates, Trump intentionally valued the property at astronomical levels, saying it was worth as much as $739 million. That’s the number he used in 2018, when state officials say it was only worth $25 million.
In doing so, the state alleges, Trump relied on the false premise that Mar-a-Lago was an unrestricted property. Trump misrepresented that he could develop the 17 waterfront acres even though the former president had personally signed deeds donating away his residential development rights for tax purposes, the state alleges.
Trump has fixated on the value of Mar-a-Lago during the trial’s nine weeks, as a matter of personal pride and as part of his defense that his net-worth statements actually underestimated the value of his properties.
At issue now, in the non-jury, civil trial, is whether the over-valuations of Mar-a-Lago and other Trump properties fit the legal definition of fraud under New York criminal law, and if so, how many millions in ill-gotten gains he must pay back.
The state alleges that over the course of a decade, Trump pocketed more than $250 million in interest savings and property sales proceeds that he’d never have had if he’d told banks what his assets were really worth.
The state fought hard on Friday against Trump’s side calling Moens as an expert witness.
Kevin Wallace, a lead lawyer on the case for James, called the broker “a friend of Trump” whose valuation of the club can’t be recreated or tested.
The judge had already found in his ruling from September that those deed restrictions severely limited the club’s value, Wallace noted.
“The defendants now want to spend a whole day arguing that you’re wrong,” he complained.
“And that Mar-a-Lago should be valued at $1 billion because Elon Musk might want to go to Palm Beach,” he added, sounding exasperated.
“And that’s what we’re going to do,” the judge responded. “I’m very reluctant to allow this but it’s the defense case.”
Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.Charles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
An unbiased witness?
Moens is likely to be questioned on the witness stand Tuesday about whether he can give a truly unvarnished view of Mar-a-Lago’s worth. He and Trump go back a long ways, and a lot of money has passed back and forth between them.
“And did you receive a commission?” Moens was asked during the July deposition.
“Well, it was a few million dollars,” he answered. “I don’t remember the amount.”
“Do you recall receiving $225,000 for consulting work” from Trump, an attorney for the AG, Alex Finkelstein, asked the broker, showing him Trump Organization documents saying that money crossed hands in 2014.
Moens answered that he’d have to check his records.
Moens also testified that he has been a broker for Eric Trump, and a member of Mar-a-Lago since 1996, months after it opened. He knows Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump, who he testified was “a very lovely person.”
“I’ve known her since she was a little girl,” Moens said.
He was more circumspect about Trump, though.
“He’s someone I’ve known for probably three decades, maybe longer,” he told the state’s lawyers, when asked how he’d describe his relationship to the former president.
“How do you describe the word ‘friend?'” the state’s lawyer then asked.
“I have very few friends, so I would describe them as people that are very close to me, that I see often, that I spent time with, that I have a relationship with,” Moens answered.
“Is Donald Trump one of those people?” the broker was then asked.
“I don’t see Donald Trump enough or spend enough time with Donald Trump to call him a friend,” he answered.
Asked “What would you call him?” Moens added, ‘I’d like to think he’s my friend, but I would call him someone that I’ve had an association with for many years.”
New York Judge Arthur Engoron and Donald Trump lawyer Christopher Kise sparred again on Thursday as the civil fraud trial against the former president and his company continued.
Engoron reportedly ordered Kise to apologize after making a negative remark against the lead counsel in the case, sparking a back-and-forth that ultimately led to a half-hearted apology.
The pair have verbally squabbled throughout the entirety of the proceedings resulting from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million lawsuit against Trump, his adult sons and the Trump organization for purportedly inflating the value of his properties and assets in exchange for favorable loans and tax breaks. He’s denied wrongdoing.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at The Ted Hendricks Stadium at Henry Milander Park on November 8, 2023 in Hialeah, Florida. On November 9, Trump lawyer Christopher Kise was reprimanded for making comments about opposing counsel in what has been a fiery week in the courtroom. Alon Skuy/Getty Images
The former president and current 2024 GOP front-runner skipped the third Republican presidential debate on Wednesday evening, instead flying down to Florida to head a campaign rally in Hialeah. He testified in the New York courtroom on Monday, following testimony from sons Donald Jr. and Eric and before his daughter, Ivanka, taking the stand.
Following a brief morning recess on Thursday, Kise reportedly made verbal jabs toward attorneys from James’ office. He told one counselor to “check the internet” for job openings.
“Vladimir Putin has some openings,” Kise said, according to The Messenger’s Adam Klasfeld.
Engoron remarked that the comment was “totally uncalled for” and “totally incorrect,” demanding that Kise apologize. The remark was “slightly” walked back.
“The world is watching,” Kise said.
Engoron also told Kise not to engage in ad hominem attacks against opposing counsel, according to legal analyst Lisa Rubin, which Kise obliged but insisted that the other side should also have to adhere to such wishes.
Newsweek reached out to Kise via email on Thursday for comment.
Kise’s remarks were unlike him, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg told Newsweek via email.
“Chris Kise is a respected attorney who is a former Florida solicitor general,” Aronberg said. “These attacks seem out of character for him, so he must be playing to an audience of one.”
Kise’s comments follow fiery testimony from Trump himself on Monday, who while taking the stand to ask questions went on what some considered to be a political tirade against Engoron, James and the entire trial as a whole.
Trump’s “monologue,” as described by Klasfeld, included calling the trial “crazy.”
“I’m sure the judge will rule against me because he always rules against me,” Trump said in response.
Engoron, attempting to seize back control of the proceedings, asked Kise if he could rein in the former president.
“Mr. Kise, can you control your client, this is not a political rally, this is a courtroom. I don’t want editorializing, we’ll be here forever,” the judge said, reported Law360’s Stewart Bishop.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Ivanka Trumptook the stand and testified seemingly damning facts about past deals she was involved with over a decade while still part of the Trump Organization.
That included the acknowledgment of email communication between her and others within the company who expressed caution about inflating her father’s net worth in order to receive a loan from Deutsche Bank to purchase the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami.
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Ivanka Trump, daughter of former President Donald Trump, testified as a witness Wednesday in the $250 million New York civil trial in which the Trump Organization, her father and family members are accused of fraud. She testified that she had no knowledge of her father’s financial statements. Scott MacFarlane has details.
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Ivanka Trump arrives for the civil fraud trial of her father former President Donald Trump at New York State Supreme Court on November 08, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter of former President Donald Trump, testified Wednesday in the $250 million civil fraud trial that threatens her family’s business empire.
Ivanka, who had tried in vain to avoid the witness stand, was asked about her involvement with loans for Trump Organization properties that feature in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ case. James accuses Trump Sr., Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and others of falsely inflating asset values to get tax benefits and other financial perks.
Ivanka testified that she knew little about the financial statements at the heart of the AG’s case, and that she had no role in preparing them.
“I had no involvement” in Donald Trump’s statements of financial condition and “don’t know about the valuations that were taken into account,” she said.
In addition to seeking a remarkable quarter of a billion dollars in damages, James wants the court to permanently bar the ex-president and his sons from running a business in New York.
“Ivanka Trump was cordial. She was disciplined. She was controlled. And she was very courteous, but her testimony raises some questions with regards to its credibility,” James said after leaving Manhattan Supreme Court later Wednesday.
“The reality is that based on the evidence, the documentary evidence, she clearly was involved in negotiating and securing loans favorable loans for the benefit of the Trump Organization, for Mr. Trump, and her brothers, and for herself,” James said.
“At the end of the day, this case is about fraudulent statements of financial condition that she benefited from.”
New York State Attorney General Letitia James speaks to the press as she arrives for the Trump Organization civil fraud trial and testimony by Ivanka Trump, daughter of former US President Donald Trump, at the New York State Supreme Court in New York City on November 8, 2023.
Timothy A. Clary | Afp | Getty Images
Ivanka Trump was originally listed as a co-defendant, but she was dismissed from the case in June after a New York appeals court found that the claims against her fell outside a statute of limitations.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who will deliver verdicts in the no-jury trial, has already found the defendants liable for fraudulently misstating the values of real estate properties and other assets on key financial forms. His pretrial ruling ordered the cancellation of their New York business certificates, though that order is on hold while the trial proceeds.
The trial itself will determine how much the defendants will be ordered to pay in damages or other penalties. The judge will also evaluate six other claims in James’ lawsuit that have yet to be resolved.
Ivanka Trump was an executive vice president for development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization until 2017, when she joined her father’s presidential administration as a senior advisor. She “negotiated and secured financing” for company properties and “directed all areas of the company’s real estate and hotel management platform,” according to James’ lawsuit.
During her testimony, Ivanka was asked about loans for the Old Post Office building — the former site of Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel — and the Trump Doral property, both of which she is credited with having negotiated.
The former Trump International Hotel at the Old Post Office Building is seen on May 12, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Trump family completed the hotel’s sale Wednesday and the hotel will reopen as a Waldorf Astoria.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
She also fielded questions about her penthouse apartment and her father’s introduction to the personal wealth management team at Deutsche Bank.
She frequently testified that she could not recall details about the documents that were presented to her in court.
Ivanka’s testimony follows that of her father on Monday, who angrily lashed out at James, Engoron and his other self-perceived “haters” from the witness stand.
Trump also repeatedly argued that a disclaimer notice on his annual statements of financial condition provided him with total protection against legal liability if the figures were inaccurate.
“That’s why we have a disclaimer clause in case there is a mistake,” Trump said. “There is a disclaimer clause, where you don’t have to get sued by the attorney general of New York.”
But the judge, Engoron, has already rejected Trump’s interpretation of liability.
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The clause “does not say what defendants say it says, does not rise to the level of an enforceable disclaimer, and cannot be used to insulate fraud as to facts peculiarly within defendants’ knowledge,” Engoron wrote in his pretrial ruling on Sept. 26.
Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who took over the Trump Organization as executive vice presidents after their father became president in 2017, were called to the stand last week. Both testified that they relied largely on the company accountants to prepare the annual financial statements and approve valuations.
Engoron on Oct. 27 ordered Ivanka Trump to comply with subpoenas for her testimony without any limitations.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s son and co-defendant, Eric Trump, testifies during the Trump Organization civil fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., November 2, 2023 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Ivanka Trump appealed, and asked a New York appeals court to temporarily pause Engoron’s order. Her attorney argued that Ivanka, who lives in Florida, is “beyond the jurisdiction” of the New York court and would suffer “irreparable harm” if forced to testify.
The attorney also asserted that Ivanka Trump, who has three children, would face “undue hardship” if she has to appear “in the middle of a school week.”
Some legal experts swiftly chimed in to deride that argument as a poor excuse to avoid a court summons — especially for Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, whose combined net worth has been estimated to exceed $1 billion and can likely afford adequate child care.
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s combined net worth has been estimated to exceed $1 billion.
Ivanka Trump is expected to provide testimony in her father’s fraud trial on Wednesday.
New York Attorney General James is suing former President Donald Trump for $250 million, accusing him of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain benefits such as better bank loans and reduced tax bills between 2011 and 2021. Trump maintains his innocence in the case, accusing prosecutors of targeting him for political purposes. The lawsuit is civil, not criminal, meaning he will not face jail time.
James compelled testimony from Trump’s three eldest children in the business fraud lawsuit. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are listed as defendants in the civil suit and testified last week. The former president provided testimony on Monday.
Ivanka Trump, who left the Trump Organization in 2017 for a role in the White House, will testify on Wednesday. Unlike her brothers, she is not a defendant in the civil suit and was dropped from it earlier this year due to a statute of limitations.
Ivanka Trump attends a Department of Justice event in Washington, D.C., on August 4, 2020. Trump is set to testify in the Trump Organization’s business fraud trial on November 8, 2023. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
She previously served as the executive vice president for development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization. James’ office has argued that while she is not a defendant, she still played a key role in negotiating and financing Trump Organization properties.
She served as a “primary contact” for Deutsche Bank, the company’s largest lender, for three loans that are at the center of the case, according to the attorney general’s office.
Newsweek reached out to Ivanka Trump‘s attorney for comment via email.
The projects Ivanka Trump worked on at the Trump Organization included securing a lease and loan for a Washington hotel, loans for Trump’s Doral golf resort in South Florida, and a Trump-owned hotel and condo skyscraper in Chicago, the Associated Press reported.
Federal prosecutors have argued her finances remained intertwined with the Trump Organization even after her 2017 departure.
“She does not seem to be averse to her involvement in the family business when it comes to owning and collecting proceeds from the OPO sale, the Trump Organization purchasing insurance for her and her companies, managing her household staff and credit card bills, renting her apartment or even paying her legal fees in this action,” James wrote in a court filing last month.
She reported $2.6 million in income from Trump entities in 2021 federal disclosures, the AP reported.
Ivanka Trump tried, but failed, to fight a subpoena compelling her testimony in the business fraud trial, arguing that her testimony would cause “undue hardship” if it were to be held during a school week. A New York court rejected her request.
She is expected to be the last member of the Trump family to testify and will follow the testimony of her father. The former president’s behavior during the trial drew a rebuke from Judge Arthur Engoron, who ordered his attorneys to “control him” following a series of tangents.
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Wednesday is hump day, famously. It’s that midweek push where you just gotta grit your teeth, send the kids off to school, fly to New York from Florida, testify in your dad and brother’s civil fraud trial about what you knew and when you knew it, and just hold on until the weekend. As today proves, it’ll be Fri-yay soon enough.
Ivanka Trump, as a parent who has long worked and traveled all over the world—including over weekdays!—in her capacity as one of her father’s senior advisers during his one-term presidency, surely understands the idea of white-knuckling until the weekend. But as her lawyer argued in an appeal filed Thursday, “Ms. Trump, who resides in Florida with her three minor children, will suffer undue hardship if a stay is denied and she is required to testify at trial in New York in the middle of a school week, in a case she has already been dismissed from, before her appeal is heard.”
It did not work. She’s still scheduled to testify on Wednesday, November 8.
Besides asking the judge to think of the kids, Trump’s counsel has tried a few other things to protect her from having to testify, namely arguing that she hasn’t lived or worked in New York since 2017, and so its civil court doesn’t have the jurisdiction to compel her testimony. But Judge Arthur Engoron previously pointed to documents saying she had business ties and property in Manhattan.
“Ms. Trump has clearly availed herself of the privilege of doing business in New York,” Engoron wrote in a filing last week.
Can’t a person keep a pied-á-terre or two in the city without it meaning they have to take the stand in a civil fraud case anymore? If we keep this up, if we keep compelling everyone who has at least one apartment in the city to testify in cases in which they’re implicated, then people won’t park their money in largely unused luxury apartments in the city anymore—and where will that leave us? What then?
Ivanka, who was a former executive in her father’s company, is no longer a defendant in the suit, which New York attorney general Letitia James brought against ex-president Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, and Trump’s adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr., who helped run the Trump Organization—for allegedly inflating the company’s wealth in order to get more favorable loans and deals. The former president and his sons have denied the allegations.
Ivanka’s brothers had their own day in court recently (both testified Thursday and Eric’s on the stand again on Friday). They have largely taken the know-nothing tact while on the stand, which certainly suits.
Ivanka Trump apparently doesn’t want to testify in her family’s civil fraud trial and is taking extreme steps to avoid it.
Former President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter is scheduled to appear next week but asked a New York appeals court to pause the $250 million trial for reasons of “undue hardship,” according to CNBC.
The “undue hardship,” she claims, is being asked to testify “in the middle of a school week.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the request a “drastic” move that “would upend an ongoing trial.”
Currently, the former president and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are co-defendants in the case, which alleges that the trio and others engaged in a long-running scam to falsely inflate the elder Trump’s net worth.
Although Ivanka Trump was originally a co-defendant as well, a New York appeals court removed her from the lawsuit earlier this year on statute-of-limitations grounds.
She worked at the Trump Organization as executive vice president for development and acquisitions until early January 2017, when she took a position in the White House as a senior adviser to her father.
Aside from the school week conflict she cited, there may be another reason why Ivanka Trump wants to avoid testifying.
On Wednesday, Trump biographer Tim O’Brien told MSNBC that she could be carved 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.”
Meanwhile, the former first daughter’s attempt to avoid testifying was the subject of much amusement on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Funny, she seemed to accompany her dad on several international trips during his White House tenure—and several days a week, I make it to the same trial she’s trying to avoid despite two school-aged kids & a working spouse. https://t.co/nGmabHQJmm
And on weekends the kids have soccer. They’ll just have to conduct the quarter-of-a-billion-dollar trial about her family business without her. 🤷🏻♂️ https://t.co/o5evd0BWzu
Others, including former Trump surrogate A.J. Delgado, pointed out Ivanka Trump’s obvious privilege compared to other working parents.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Im sorry, Im dying. If I had a dollar for each time a judge told me, “Figure it out, too bad!” (pS And Ivanka has a nanny, if not several!) https://t.co/yk407aayvI
AT FIRST GLANCE this sounds like a ridiculous position but keep in mind that nobody with kids has ever been ordered to come to court on a weekday before https://t.co/I6ST70cenQ
Is there a person alive who thinks Ivanka and Jared, who seem to travel overseas every time I blink, are sitting around doing laundry and packing their kids’ lunches? https://t.co/cCmwd8GSuM
Ivanka Trump asked a New York appeals court to pause the $250 million fraud trial of her family and its business empire as she appeals a judge‘s order requiring her to testify in the case next week.
The request to stay the entire trial came at the tail end of a Thursday court filing arguing that Ivanka Trump will face “undue hardship” if forced to testify — in part because she is scheduled to appear “in the middle of a school week.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James urged the appeals court to reject that request, calling it a “drastic” and baseless move that “would upend an ongoing trial.”
Ivanka Trump’s filing in the First Judicial Department of the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division mainly sought a temporary stay of the order for her testimony while she pursues an appeal.
On Wednesday, her attorney filed a notice that she is appealing “each and every part” of Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron’s order rejecting her bid to avoid the witness stand.
She is currently expected to begin testifying next Wednesday, following her father, former President Donald Trump.
All three of Ivanka’s family members are named as co-defendants in James’ case, alleging a decade-long scheme to falsely inflate Donald Trump Sr.’s net worth in order to get various financial perks, including tax benefits and better loan terms.
Ivanka Trump was originally listed as a co-defendant as well, but she was removed earlier this year on statute of limitations grounds by a New York appeals court earlier.
James’ lawsuit described her an executive vice president for development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization until early January 2017, when she became a senior advisor to her father in the White House.
Eric and Trump Jr. took over the Trump Organization after their father became president.
In Thursday’s filing to the appeals court, Ivanka’s attorney argued that she is “beyond the jurisdiction” of Engoron’s court and that the judge made “multiple errors” when he declined to quash subpoenas for her testimony.
The lawyer, Bennett Moskowitz, argued the court lacks personal jurisdiction over Ivanka, noting that she lives not in New York but in Florida.
He also argued that her subpoenas were improperly served. “Ms. Trump, who resides in Florida with her three minor children, will suffer undue hardship if a stay is denied and she is required to testify at trial in New York in the middle of a school week, in a case she has already been dismissed from, before her appeal is heard,” Moskowitz wrote.
James fired back in a court filing later Thursday, calling the arguments about a lack of jurisdiction “utterly meritless.” The attorney general noted that Ivanka owns New York property and “still transacts business in the state.”
“Ms. Trump’s arguments are based on the false premise that witnesses with relevant, firsthand knowledge may be called to testify only if they are ‘a primary actor’ in the case,” James told the appeals court.
Ivanka Trump “has firsthand knowledge of issues that are central to the ongoing trial,” James wrote. “And staying her testimony may well serve to delay the fair and orderly resolution of a trial that has now been proceeding for over almost a month, in which OAG is nearing completion of its case in chief.”
James added: “Ms. Trump’s mere need to attend trial for a single day to testify truthfully is not itself a serious harm that warrants emergency relief.”
Ivanka Trump will testify next Friday after her father and brothers Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have given evidence in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million lawsuit. The suit alleges the former president and the Trump Organization inflated the value of assets for years to get loans and score deals.
“This weird kind of psycho-drama that’s playing out in the courtroom now is going to get capped at the end of next week with Ivanka’s testimony,” O’Brien told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “And as we all know Donald Trump has a very perverse, unsettling relationship with his daughter, he’s talked about wanting to date her, he sees her as this sort of trophy he can parade around.”
“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.”
Earlier in the interview, O’Brien said “the reality” is that “lying and dissembling is not a bug in the Trump Organization,” it’s “a feature.”
The three Trump children are also “as ignorant as their father,” he said.
“They are comically ill-informed about everything under the sun, and that is another reason why they dissemble,” O’Brien added. “And the children’s relationship to their father is a hostage video. All of them are behold to him. They have been since they were children.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When Donald Trump became president in 2017, he handed day-to-day management of his real estate empire to his eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric.
Now, as the Trumps fight to keep the family business intact, the brothers are set to testify in the New York civil fraud case that threatens their Trump Organization’s future.
Donald Trump Jr. is expected to testify Wednesday and Eric Trump on Thursday, kicking off a blockbuster stretch as the trial in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit enters its second month.
James, a Democrat, alleges that Donald Trump, his company and top executives, including Eric and Donald Trump Jr., conspired to exaggerate his wealth by billions of dollars on financial statements that were given to banks, insurers and others to secure loans and make deals.
Donald Trump — the former president, family patriarch and 2024 Republican front-runner — is slated to testify Monday, followed by his eldest daughter, ex-Trump Organization executive and White House adviser Ivanka Trump, on Nov. 8. State lawyers are expected to rest their case after that, giving Trump’s lawyers a chance to call their own witnesses.
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are both executive vice presidents at the Trump Organization and defendants in James’ lawsuit. Eric has oversight over the company’s operations while Donald Trump Jr. has been involved in running the company’s property development. He and longtime company finance chief Allen Weisselberg were also trustees of the revocable trust Trump set up to hold the company’s assets when he became president.
Before the trial, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump’s financial statements were fraudulent. He ordered that a court-appointed receiver seize control of some of his companies — potentially stripping him and his family of such marquee properties as Trump Tower — though an appeals court has halted enforcement for now.
Like their father, both brothers have denied wrongdoing.
Eric Trump has spent several days at the trial, often on the days his dad has been there. He’s commented sporadically, mostly on social media. On Oct. 5, he posted a video montage to Truth Social of James criticizing his father. With it, he wrote: “this is the corruption my father and our family is fighting! The system is weaponized, broken and disgusting!”
Donald Trump Jr. hasn’t been to court, but since testimony began Oct. 2, he’s repeatedly denounced the case and Engoron as a “kangaroo court.” State law doesn’t allow for juries in this type of lawsuit, so Engoron will decide the case.
“It doesn’t matter what the rules are, it doesn’t matter what the Constitution says, it doesn’t matter what general practices and business would be,” Donald Trump Jr. said Monday on Newsmax. “It doesn’t matter. They have a narrative, they have an end goal, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get there.”
Building to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump’s testimony, state lawyers have asked other witnesses about their role leading the Trump Organization and their involvement, over the years, in valuing their father’s properties and preparing his financial statements. Their names have also appeared on various emails and documents entered into evidence.
David McArdle, an appraiser at commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, testified that Eric Trump had substantial input on valuing planned-but-never-built townhomes at a Trump-owned golf course in the New York City suburbs. McArdle said Eric Trump arrived at a “more lofty value” than him for the project but that going with the scion’s higher number wouldn’t have been credible.
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have already been heard from at the trial, albeit in snippets of prior testimony. During opening statements on Oct. 2, state lawyers showed about a minute each from sworn depositions the brothers gave in the case.
In his July 2022 clip, Donald Trump Jr. testified about his scant knowledge of the accounting standards known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles — which state lawyers say were used at times and disregarded at others in preparing Donald Trump’s financial statements.
Trump Jr., who’s never been an accountant, said he couldn’t recall having to use the GAAP standards in his work. He got a laugh out of a state lawyer when he said he’d learned about them “probably in Accounting 101 at Wharton” but didn’t remember much other than that they were “generally accepted.”
In his March 2023 deposition, Eric Trump testified, “I don’t think I’ve had any involvement in the Statement of Financial Condition, to the best of my knowledge.” He appeared to minimize his role as a top company executive, testifying that he tried to remain “siloed into the things I care and are passionate about” while sharing management responsibilities with his brother.
“I’m a construction, concrete and on-the-ground operations guy,” Eric Trump said, according to a deposition transcript posted on the case docket.
Questioned at another point about decision-making earlier in his career, Eric Trump said: “I pour concrete. I operate properties. I don’t focus on appraisals between a law firm and Cushman. This is just not what I do in my day-to-day responsibilities.”
Donald Trump attended the trial’s first three days in early October and showed up again for four days in the past two weeks, but his campaign schedule suggests it’s unlikely he’ll return to see his sons testify.
In his past appearances, Trump groused to TV cameras outside court, calling the case a “sham,” a “scam,” and “a continuation of the single greatest witch hunt of all time.” He also angered the judge twice, incurring $15,000 in fines for violating a limited gag order with comments about a member of the court staff.
Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.
Boo! It was Ivanka Trump’s birthday on Monday. The former adviser, current daughter of the former president, current defendant Donald Trump has turned 42. Per the Daily Mail, she celebrated the milestone with a meal at her home on Indian Creek Island, known as “billionaires bunker” to the tabloid and others. The eldest Trump daughter didn’t share who was intended to appear at the long table with many place settings shown in her photo (besides some shots of her immediate family), but she did share the many people who wished her happy birthday.
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Kim Kardashian was among these with not one but two posts to Ivanka’s Instagram Stories. One post was a photo of the two women with a daughter each. The other was just the two of them together. The last time they were together was at Kardashian’s birthday party, the weekend before last, attended by Ivanka, Jeff Bezos’s fiancée Lauren Sánchez, and more.
Kardashian has stood by Ivanka’s side (and even appeared to double down on their friendship during Ivanka’s White House years), but this appears to be the very public phase of reentry into polite society—and it’s not without its road bumps. Last year, New York attorney general Letitia James sued Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, the company’s executives, and three of Trump’s eldest children, including Ivanka and sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. James alleged that the defendants had exaggerated Trump’s wealth in a conspiracy to get better loan terms and deals. In June, an appeals court dismissed the claims against Ivanka. James has called on Ivanka, who is not an exec, to testify. The court had originally set her testimony for Friday, but it’s been shunted to November 8 after Judge Arthur Engoron reasoned that Fridays are generally half-day sessions, and questioning is expected to be a full-day affair.
With this, there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that Ivanka failed to get her subpoena dismissed and still has to take the stand. In James’s words, Ivanka “remains financially and professionally intertwined with the Trump Organization and other Defendants and can be called as a person still under their control.”
The good news is, because the court pushed her testimony back, she has more time to come down from the party! But of course, Ivanka could always walk and chew gum at the same time. She can enjoy her own birthday party, publicly reenter Los Angeles society alongside the town’s entrepreneurial titans Kardashian and Sánchez, and also prep to be questioned on the matter of the family business’s alleged financial conspiracy. Women can have it all.
Former President Donald Trump took aim at Judge Arthur Engoron again on Sunday calling him “CRAZY” and suggesting he should be “thrown off the Bench.”
Trump is facing a $250 million civil fraud trial stemming from a lawsuit New York Attorney General Letitia James filed last year, alleging that Trump and top executives at The Trump Organization conspired to increase his net worth by billions of dollars on financial statements provided to banks and insurers to make deals and secure loans. Trump, who is campaigning for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and is the current frontrunner, has denied any wrongdoing and has called the trial politically motivated.
Last week Engoron, who is overseeing the case, fined Trump for the second time after he violated a partial gag order imposed to stop him from attacking court staff overseeing James’ lawsuit. On October 20, Engoron first fined Trump $5,000 for violating the gag order by not removing a post from his social media site, Truth Social, more than two weeks after the judge ordered its deletion.
Trump has previously criticized Engoron, most recently calling him an “incompetent” judge and a “political hack” on Saturday for his ruling on Ivanka Trump. Engoron ruled that she must testify in person, stating that while she isn’t a defendant in the case, she still can be subpoenaed in New York because she conducted business and owns property in the state.
“I want to see her in person. That is how we prefer testimony,” the judge said.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Hilton Anatole on August 06, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. On Sunday, Trump suggested that Judge Engoron be “thrown off the Bench” amid his ongoing fraud trial in New York. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Taking to Truth Social again on Sunday, Trump spoke about the judge in part saying, “The Trump Hating Judge in this case has gone off the rails. The case should have never been brought by the Corrupt, Racist Attorney General, but with any other Judge it would have been dismissed. Their Star Witness admitted he lied, ‘TRUMP did not Inflate Values.’ The Judge says Mar-a-Lago is worth $18,000,000, when it’s 50 to 100 times that amount. I really believe he’s CRAZY!”
Trump continued, “This Corrupt Judge doesn’t even acknowledge or accept the decision of the Appeals Court. He Gags and Fines me constantly, for no reason. He should be thrown off the “Bench” as a giant Embarrassment to New York State!”
Newsweek has reached out to a Trump spokesperson via email for comment.
Meanwhile, law professor Anthony Michael Kreis told Newsweek on Sunday, “Criminal defendants have every right to criticize judges so long as they are not engaging in activity that constitutes a threat to do them [h]arm. This is political bluster— however unwise it may be to show public disdain for a judge you have a case before— and should not be subject to punishment.”
Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg also told Newsweek on Sunday that, “Judge Engoron imposed a partial gag order on Trump, but it only applies to court staff — not the judge himself.”
Aronberg added, “As such, Trump won’t be sanctioned for these inflammatory words. This could, however, persuade the judge to broaden his gag order to include others, such as himself.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Ivanka Trump will have to testify in the $250 million civil trial against her father and brothers, a judge ruled on Friday.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over a non-jury trial in Manhattan to resolve final claims in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against Trump, his company and top executives, issued the ruling. The former president’s daughter was once a defendant in the suit, which accuses Trump of wildly inflating his net worth to secure favorable economic terms for his businesses and properties, but she was cut from the case in June on statute of limitations grounds.
Ivanka’s lawyers have unsuccessfully argued that the former president’s daughter, who left the Trump Organization in 2017 to work in the White House and later moved from New York to Miami, shouldn’t have to testify. Her lawyer, Bennet Moskowitz, told Engoron Friday that New York state lawyers “just don’t have jurisdiction over her.”
And one of her father’s attorneys, Christopher Kise, argued that lawyers in James’ office “just want another free-for-all” on another of Trump’s three children. (Trump’s two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, are also scheduled to testify next week.) “The idea that somehow Ms. Trump is under the control of the Trump Organization or any of the defendants, her father — anyone who has raised a daughter past the age of 13 knows that they’re not under their control,” Kise said.
But Engoron rejected those arguments, arguing that Ivanka “has clearly availed herself of the privilege of doing business in New York” since 2017, citing evidence that Ivanka still owns homes in Manhattan and has ties to New York-based businesses. Engoron also swiftly denied a request from Kise to have Ivanka provide a video deposition taken remotely in Florida. “We want her here in person,” he said.
In September, a trial judge found Trump liable for fraud, ruling that he had likely inflated his net worth by between $812 million and $2.2 billion between 2014 and 2021. James’ office is seeking a $250 penalty, as well as several other punishments, including a ruling barring Trump from applying for loans and entering into real estate transactions in New York.
The oldest daughter, once widely seen as an influential White House advisor who consistently had the ear of the president, has distanced herself since testifying before the Jan. 6 Committee that she believed President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. On the same night of her father’s re-election bid announcement in November 2022, Ivanka told Fox News Digital she did not “plan to be involved in politics” during the 2024 race.
The former president is expected to testify in person on November 6.
