This morning, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered Ivanka Trump to testify in the civil fraud case against her family and its eponymous business.
“Ms. Trump has clearly availed herself of the privilege of doing business in New York,” he ruled from the bench.
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The Trump defendants have argued for years that the disputed transactions are time-barred, even under a tolling agreement they executed after screwing around to block discovery for years on end. Attorney General Letitia James countered that fraudulently secured loans which would otherwise be outside the statute of limitations are prosecutable as ongoing transactions if the loans were still being repaid during the statutory period. So for example, she could charge Trump for a loan obtained in 2013 with false documents if that loan was still outstanding in 2018.
Justice Engoron agreed with the AG, but on June 27, New York’s First Judicial Department reversed him, finding that the statute of limitations barred claims against the Trump Organization originating before February 6, 2016. By the same logic, the appellate court dismissed Ivanka Trump from the case, as she had noped out of the family real estate business by then to work in the family political business.
But the First Department’s holding failed to end the controversy. Trump’s attorneys claim that the appellate order means that the statute of limitations runs against evidence, as well as claims, and thus nothing that happened before February 2016 can be mentioned in court. This has gotten a heavy eye-roll from Justice Engoron, who allowed prosecutors to present testimony from Trump’s longstanding auditors and accountants about their pre- and post-2016 dealings with the defendants.
Trump carps about this constantly on social media, although usually in garbled fashion and buried under a mountain of invective and thinly veiled racist jabs at AG James.
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Yesterday, he railed against the “unhinged Judge, a highly political and fully biased Trump Hater” who “refuses to accept the decision of the Appeals Court, a first in New York.”
“We WON on Statute of Limitations, and other things, at the Appeals Court, AND THIS RADICAL LEFT, TRUMP HATING JUDGE, REFUSES TO ACCEPT THEIR DECISION. THIS CASE SHOULD BE DROPPED, IMMEDIATELY. IT’S AMAZING!” he screamed last week.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the First Department ruling also barred the state from calling Ivanka Trump as a witness. In a histrionic motion to quash, they accused the AG of using “facially invalid subpoenas” to “needlessly haul Ms. Trump into a highly publicized trial for the obvious purpose of harassment of both Ms. Trump and her father.” The former president’s daughter is now a Florida resident, not under the control of the Trump Organization, and thus outside the jurisdiction of the court, they insist.
This prompted heavy eye-rolls from the prosecutors as well, who noted that Ivanka: (1) contested the case for years without arguing that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over her as a Florida resident; (2) continues to own real estate in New York; and (3) is a member of multiple New York entities, including Ivanka OPO LLC, through which she was paid $4 million in 2022 after the sale of the Trump hotel in the Old Post Office building in DC.
The AG also includes this snarky aside about Ivanka’s supposed separation from Daddy’s business:
[S]he 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. It is only when she is tasked with answering for that involvement that she disclaims any connection.
In the event, the AG’s argument carried the day, with Justice Engoron ordering the former president’s daughter to show up and get on the witness stand. He did, however, give her a week to appeal and see if the First Department would like to bail her out again.
Presumably, this suits the AG just fine. The Messenger’s Adam Klasfeld and Darren Samuelsohn report that prosecutors announced this afternoon that they intend to call the three Trump kids in the middle of next week, saving Trump himself for Monday, November 6.
Be there. Will be wild!
Ivanka Trump Loses Bid to Block Subpoena Forcing Her Testimony in Her Father’s New York Civil Fraud Case [Messenger]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.