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.
