According to Mediaite, former First Daughter Ivanka Trump’s testimony in the fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James took center stage, with her repeated claims of not remembering key details. Prior to the lunch break, Ivanka allegedly invoked this response more than 30 times, presenting a notable pattern of apparent memory lapses.
The trial, presided over by Judge Arthur Engoron, had previously seen testimonies from former co-First Sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., culminating with the appearance of the former President, Donald Trump, as a witness on Monday.
Ivanka had attempted to evade testifying, citing “undue hardship,” but ultimately took the stand on Wednesday. MSNBC’s legal analyst Lisa Rubin provided insights into Ivanka’s testimony during a segment on MSNBC’s Chris Jansing Reports, highlighting the effectiveness of the prosecution’s strategy despite the limited information provided by Ivanka.
Rubin emphasized that although Ivanka’s memory lapses were a significant aspect of her testimony, the prosecution managed to build a compelling narrative using the documents presented to her during the trial. The narrative suggested that the Trump organization encountered difficulties securing financing for its projects due to Trump’s perceived credit risk, leading them to explore options with Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management group.
The attorney general sought to demonstrate that Ivanka was involved in various deals where alternative financing was not readily available, thus necessitating the involvement of Deutsche Bank under specific conditions, including a requirement for a substantial net worth. Documents revealed an email exchange between Ivanka and Jason Greenblatt, a Trump Organization lawyer, wherein Ivanka acknowledged the challenges posed by the net worth requirement.
Despite Ivanka’s repeated claims of not recalling pertinent details during her testimony, Rubin noted that the attorney general’s office had effectively used the trial to construct a compelling narrative around the Trump organization’s financial dealings and the role played by key individuals, including Ivanka. The examination of Ivanka’s involvement in the financial aspects of the deals presented a critical perspective, contributing to the prosecution’s case.
CHRIS JANSING: Lisa, this is the first time you’ve been able to come out of court since the last break. What’s happening inside there?
LISA RUBIN: We are seeing an Ivanka Trump, who, as you know, Chris, doesn’t remember much. But I want to go against what some folks are saying as a conclusion about that.
This is actually been remarkably effective testimony for the attorney general, not because of what Ivanka Trump says, but because in sitting there, they are able to show her a number of documents that she is on and use them as evidence in the case and build a narrative.
And the narrative goes something like this. The Trump organization was not able to obtain financing for a number of its deals on terms they found acceptable to them. Why? Because Trump was a credit risk and commercial real estate lenders and private equity firms and all sorts of other people who might have loaned him money ran away.
Then Jared Kushner introduced Ivanka Trump to a woman named Rosemary Levick, who was a banker in the private wealth management group at Deutsche Bank. And the narrative that the attorney general wants the judge to see is that again and again and again, Ivanka Trump was involved in deals where they couldn’t obtain financing from other sources on favorable terms.
So they went to Deutsche Bank, whose private management group was willing to lend to them on two conditions. And the conditions were this will give you a lower interest rate and one that you like. But you got to give us a personal guarantee that you can cover the principal and the interest on the loan, as well as the operating income of this asset that you’re about to operate.
And on top of that, you’ve got to meet a minimum net worth requirement of at least 2 to $3 billion. And Ivanka Trump had an email with a gentleman named Jason Greenblatt, who was a lawyer at the Trump Organization that she was showed. And in it, she basically says this is as good as it gets. And then Greenblatt responds, “But what about the net worth requirement? That’s going to be an issue for us.”.
And Ivanka says, the gist of her response is “absolutely. But we knew that.”
And so I think this has been a tremendously effective couple of hours for the attorney general’s office, although you wouldn’t know it by sitting in the courtroom and listening to her say again and again — politely, as always — I don’t recall.
