Ivanka Trump took to the witness stand Wednesday morning in the New York civil fraud trial that's threatening to bar her father and brothers from conducting business in the state, adopting a more cooperative and polite demeanor in her testimony than her family members did, according to The Messenger and MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin. The outlet noted that Ivanka Trump did not appear as inclined to distance herself from the relevant business dealings as her brothers and father did when they testified.
When asked about her role in the Trump Organization, where she served as executive vice president alongside her brothers, she placed herself at the center of key properties' transactions, testifying that she spent "an enormous amount of time shepherding" their development. "The import of her testimony today isn't so much what she remembers. Spoiler alert: Like her brothers, it's not a whole lot. And the documents that she's been show this morning don't really refresh her memory about her involvement," Rubin reported, noting that Ivanka was "unfailingly polite."
But, Rubin explained, evidence introduced as Ivanka Trump testified showed that Donald Trump and his daughter met with Deutsche Bank's Rosemary Vrablic in 2011 and struck a deal. The terms required Donald Trump, in exchange for very low interest rates, to sign a personal guarantee that he'd cover all principal, annual and operating income, and attest that he had a minimum net worth of $2.5 billion. That requirement, as Ivanka Trump and a Trump Organization exec acknowledged in an email exchange, posed a problem. "Nonetheless, Donald Trump told Deutsche Bank not only did he have $2.5 billion in his net worth exclusive of his brand, he had over $4 billion," Rubin said. "And so this has been kind of a devastating series of documents for the Trump Organization and the AG's case against them."
