Former President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump is seemingly expected to testify on Friday in a $250 million fraud case that the New York attorney general is waging against her father and his associates via Forbes.
Ivanka tried to get out of taking the stand. However, it might be even worse news for her father, who employed Ivanka in his years-long con to convince the world that he had more money than he actually did.
It has been noted that the attorney general will have plenty of questions for Donald Trump’s eldest daughter. Ivanka helped lead the acquisition of two assets at the center of the lawsuit, the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C. and the Trump National Doral golf resort in Miami. She also lived in another property caught up in the proceedings, a condo building named Trump Park Avenue in New York City.
To fully understand Ivanka’s involvement in her father’s deceit, it helps to get inside the room where the lying took place. That’s exactly where three Forbes journalists were in September 2015, when Donald Trump hosted them in Trump Tower as part of his quest to climb higher on the Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people.
Trump spouted off all sorts of nonsense that day, claiming his properties were more profitable, spacious and valuable than they actually were. In the middle of his pitch, the Republican frontrunner received a phone call. “Ivanka,” said Trump, “my little Ivanka.”
Nine minutes later, she entered the room: “Hiiii!”
“I was on a construction call with the Doral folks—they’re excited you’re coming down,” Ivanka told her father. “Forbes actually did a very nice profile on that project.”
“On Doral?” Donald Trump asked.
“Yeah,” Ivanka responded.
Ivanka and Donald were tag-teaming a pitch about how much the golf resort was worth. Forbes had valued it at $225 million before debt, which the Trumps deemed far too low. “We’ll make $75 million this year,” Donald Trump said, even though the property would actually earn $14 million that year.
“150,000 square feet of meeting space,” added Ivanka, opting to use a bigger figure than the ones listed in the Trump Organization’s own materials (which said the property included “over 90,000 square feet of meeting space”) and her not-yet-published book (which claimed “a hundred thousand square feet of meeting space”).
Ivanka then noted that a different Forbes writer had said Doral’s land alone was worth at least $1 billion. That was pretty much true. Another journalist, with a knack for golf coverage, had indeed authored a feature in the lifestyle spinoff of Forbes that said the land at Doral was “worth close to $1 billion.”
The three journalists inside Trump Tower that day, all specialists in investigating the fortunes of billionaires, were not about to fall for the same ruse. Trump had spent $150 million in 2012 buying Doral, which is less than 700 acres, according to property records—not the 800 that Ivanka and her father like to claim.
Trump splurged more than $100 million into it, but his renovation did not seem to boost performance much. By 2015, Doral was earning only 13% more than it had in 2012, according to lending records, justifying the preliminary estimate of $225 million that Forbes’ number crunchers had calculated after consulting more than a half dozen golf and leisure experts.
“We have, like, no debt on it,” Ivanka said, ignoring the $125 million of Deutsche Bank debt that encumbered the property.
“You guys have it valued—,” her father started to say.
“—$119 [million],” cut in Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, calling out the amount of estimated equity after debt, rather than the $225 million asset valuation.
“That’s a joke,” Ivanka sniffed.
Later in the conversation, one of the Forbes journalists pointed out that there was a $106 million mortgage against the property, contradicting Ivanka’s earlier claim. “That might be right,” her father conceded, failing to mention the fact that there was a second tranche of $19 million in debt that made the total liabilities against the property $125 million.
“You know what we’re paying in interest on that mortgage?” Donald Trump said. “Two percent.”
Weisselberg chimed in: “Less.”“1.75%,” Ivanka said.
Her father confirmed: “Yeah, 1.75%.”
