Judge REJECTS Ivanka Trump’s bid to postpone testimony in fraud trial

A New York judge has rejected Ivanka Trump’s legal maneuver to prevent him from taking a stand in his father’s $250 million fraud trial next week. The mother of three claimed that testifying would cause her “undue hardship” — noting that next week’s scheduled testimony falls in the middle of a school week. Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the case, had already ordered Ivanka to testify in the case, while her lawyers asked an appeals court to overturn the decision. But he denied a request from her legal team to suspend his decision while she appeals it to a higher court.

The latest legal wrangling took place Thursday evening, at the end of a day in which Trump son and Trump Organization director Eric Trump took the stand and repeatedly testified that he knew nothing about financial statements about the value of company assets in his Gulf and real estate empire. The company’s ability to continue doing business in New York state is at stake as New York AG Letitia James demands a $250 million fine after a judge already issued a finding of fraud. The former president, who has repeatedly attacked the judge and James, will take the stand for his own blockbuster testimony on Monday. His daughter, who helped manage real estate projects including the former Trump hotel in Washington, D.C., was expected to take the stand on Wednesday.

Ivanka Trump joined her father as a White House adviser during his time in office, while her brothers Don Jr. and Eric worked as executives to run their father’s business. Her team was able to argue that she deserves to be left out of the legal drama. She and husband Jared Kushner left New York for Florida, and they say she has not returned to the company. Her lawyers invoke her role as a mother to try to avoid the stand.

‘Mrs. Trump, who lives in Florida with her three minor children, will suffer undue hardship if she is denied residency and has to testify at the New York trial in the middle of a school week, in a case for which she has already been fired. before her appeal is heard,” her attorney wrote in the appeal seeking to block the order to testify.

But Judge Arthur Engoron has pointed to documents that still point to ownership and management ties to justify her participation in the case. ‘Mrs. Trump has clearly taken advantage of the privilege of doing business in New York,” Engoron said.

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