Ivanka Trump testifies about loan negotiations that cast doubt on her father's net worth
NEW YORK — Ivanka Trump testified Wednesday about a 2011 loan negotiation for her father that suggested his true net worth was much lower than what he claimed on his financial statements at the time.
On the witness stand in the $250 million civil fraud trial against Donald Trump and his real estate empire, the former president’s daughter said she had helped negotiate to lower the net worth her father was required to maintain in order to obtain a loan from Deutsche Bank for Trump National Doral, the golf resort in Miami.
Ivanka Trump was the final witness called by the New York attorney general’s office in the six-week-old trial, and her measured demeanor on the stand provided a stark contrast to the untamed testimony offered by her father two days earlier.
Dressed in a navy pantsuit and a white blouse, Ivanka Trump testified after unsuccessfully challenging a subpoena from Attorney General Tish James’ office.
Ivanka Trump previously worked at the Trump Organization but left the company to work for her father in the White House in 2017. She had originally been a co-defendant in James’ lawsuit, which accuses Donald Trump, his adult sons and their business associates of fraudulently inflating his net worth in order to obtain favorable terms from banks and insurers. An appeals court dismissed her from the lawsuit this past summer.
Her account of the Deutsche Bank loan negotiations was perhaps the most significant piece of her testimony.
A lawyer for James’ office presented evidence showing the bank had initially proposed that Donald Trump be required to maintain a minimum net worth of $3 billion “excluding any value related to the guarantor’s brand value.”
“It doesn’t get better than this. Let’s discuss asap,” Ivanka Trump wrote in an email to Trump Organization colleagues, including Jason Greenblatt, another executive at the company.
At the time, Trump’s financial statements, which the judge ruled prior to the trial were fraudulent, claimed his net worth was more than $4 billion. According to James’ office, however, his true net worth was closer to $1.5 billion.
In response to Ivanka Trump’s email, Greenblatt wrote that “the net worth covenants and DJT indebtedness limitations would seem to me to be a problem?”
Ivanka Trump then proposed that the net worth minimum be lowered to $2 billion, according to evidence presented by the attorney general’s office, and Trump and the bank eventually settled on a minimum net worth of $2.5 billion.
During cross-examination, a lawyer for the defense questioned her about Deutsche Bank “courting” the Trump family’s business, presumably seeking to establish a record that the bank didn’t believe it had been defrauded by the Trumps.
Following Ivanka Trump’s testimony, the state rested its case. Trump’s lawyers are expected to begin presenting their case on Monday.