Ivanka Trump has repeatedly sought to delay her court appearances that would see her testify over the Trump Organisation's financial affairs. Photo / Discovery Plus
Ivanka Trump has repeatedly sought to delay her court appearances that would see her testify over the Trump Organisation's financial affairs. Photo / Discovery Plus
Ivanka Trump’s attempt to delay testifying in her family’s US$416 million fraud trial next week by claiming she needed to be with her children during the school week has been rejected by a New York court.
Trump’s lawyers argued she would suffer “undue hardship” if she had to take the stand while daughter Arabella, 12, and sons Joseph, 10, and Theodore, 7, were “in the middle of a school week”.
It is the latest attempt by Trump, 42, to fight an order by Judge Arthur Engordon to appear in the state’s Supreme Court in downtown Manhattan next Wednesday.
She was dismissed as a defendant in the case after a court ruled that the claim related to her involvement in the Trump business empire fell outside the statute of limitations.
Eric Trump arrives at New York Supreme Court to give evidence. Photo / AP
Her lawyer Bennett Moskowitz has already questioned a New York civil court’s jurisdiction over her.
“Trump, who resides in Florida with her three minor children, will suffer undue hardship if ... she is required to testify at trial in New York in the middle of a school week,” Moskowitz said in a subsequent filing on Friday.
He sought to block Trump’s testimony until an appeal could be heard, and pause the entire fraud trial while that took place.
But the request was swiftly denied in a one-sentence ruling by New York’s appeals court on Friday.
Trump’s two brothers, Donald Jr, 45, and Eric, 39, who helped run their father’s business empire during his presidency, were both grilled from the witness stand in the case over the past two days.
The civil case has been brought by Letitia James, the New York attorney general, who alleges the Trump Organisation inflated assets by billions of dollars to secure better loans and insurance deals.
James is seeking a US$416 million fine and a ban on Trump and his sons working as executives in New York.
As he left court today, Eric Trump said his father was “fired up” to take the stand himself on Monday. It will be the first time he has testified in any of the current civil and criminal cases he faces as he mounts his 2024 presidential campaign.
Both brothers told the court that they relied on the input of hired experts in signing off financial statements that James claims were fraudulent.
“We’ve done absolutely nothing wrong,” Eric Trump told reporters. “We have a better company than they could have ever imagined.”
He said his father was looking forward to defending himself in court. “I know he’s very fired up to be here,” he said.
The former president, 77, said his sons were being “persecuted” by prosecutors.
‘I call them the hostages, not prisoners’
He was not present for their testimony, holding a rally in Texas instead, where he described people jailed for attempting to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as “hostages”.
The use of the term is especially emotive against the backdrop of the conflict in Gaza, with 10 Americans still unaccounted for and several more believed to be held by Hamas.
At least 378 people have been imprisoned for their part in the Capitol riots. Courts have imposed harsh sentences on many of those involved.
Today, a Marine Corps veteran who served as a politically appointed State Department official in Trump’s administration was sentenced to nearly six years in prison for attacking police officers during the riot.
Federico Klein “waged a relentless siege on police officers” as he tried to enter the Capitol and stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump, prosecutors said in a court filing.
Addressing a rally in Houston a day earlier, Trump said: “I call them the hostages, not prisoners, the hostages. I call them the hostages, what’s happened. And you know, it’s a shame.”
Trump, who faces 17 federal and state charges in connection with his attempt to overthrow the election, has frequently backed the jailed rioters.
His rallies regularly feature the “J6 choir”, a group of men convicted for their role in the January 6 riots, singing “Justice for All”.
The song was released on multiple streaming platforms in March. It features Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and the imprisoned men singing The Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem of the United States.
He claimed on Friday the song had beaten Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus in the charts. “We knocked them off for a long time,” he said.
More than 1000 people have been charged in connection with the assault on the Capitol. Four participants died during the chaos and five police officers died afterwards, some by suicide.
