Ivanka Trump testified she got advice from husband Jared Kushner on real estate financing deals
Ivanka Trump testified Wednesday that she got advice from her husband Jared Kushner on real estate financing deals for the Trump Organization — and he once told her she could “get better pricing” on a project, according to emails shown at her dad’s civil fraud trial.
“My husband is also in real estate, and we have respect for each other,” Ivanka, 41, said from the witness stand in Manhattan Supreme Court when asked about the emails by lawyers with the New York attorney general’s office.
“It was not uncommon that I would ask my husband’s perspective on something I was working on,” the former first daughter said.
In a June 17, 2013 email chain displayed by AG lawyer Louis Solomon, Ivanka — then an executive vice president at Trump Org — asked her hubby about a financing deal to convert the Old Post Office building in Washington DC into what would become Trump Hotel.
“You can get better pricing,” Kushner, 42, wrote in one email.
His wife then asked another Trump Org employee to “send Jared the latest.”
In a following email, Ivanka asks Kushner, whom she married in 2009, whether she should hire someone and eventually tells her husband, “I made the below deal with him.”
Near the end of Ivanka’s testimony, Donald Trump lawyer Jesus Suarez was asking Ivanka about her work developing the Old Post Office building — which the mom of three called a “labor of love.”
“It was a lot of work, to bring that vision to fruition,” Ivanka said, according to The Guardian.
During a line of questioning regarding Ivanka being asked to speak about the project at a Brooklyn conference by two local congressmen, Suarez suddenly turned to the AG’s lawyers, raised his voice and pointed.
“They are sitting back here laughing!” he shouted at the AG’s table. He added that “I’m glad that the government thinks it’s funny….while they try to destroy jobs in this state.”
It’s unclear whether the AG lawyers were actually laughing.
Justice Arthur Engoron, who is deciding the case, said he thought the AG’s office may have found it funny that Suarez — who is known for having a theatrical presence in the courtroom — had asked Ivanka whether the pols were “congressional representatives” despite Ivanka having already testified that they were congressional representatives three or four times.
Earlier, Ivanka testified about her involvement in another company project, telling the court that her dad had a “deep and nostalgic love” for the Doral golf club in Miami, Fla. — leading him to acquire it in 2012 and re-name it Trump National Doral Golf Club.
Trump, 77, told Ivanka that he would take her mom, Ivana Trump, to the resort and that it boasted a top-notch spa, she testified.
“Between him being there with his father on the golf course, and me being there as a small child … he had a lot of sentimental affection for the property and a strong feeling that it wasn’t living up to its potential,” Ivanka said.
The Trump businesswoman added that her dad had “a particular affinity for golf.”
Solomon, the AG attorney, questioned Ivanka for roughly three hours about her involvement in her real estate tycoon father’s annual financial statements.
Attorney General Letitia James claims Trump lied on these statements for a decade, exaggerating his wealth by billions for better loan and insurance terms.
Ivanka denied having anything to do with putting the financial documents together, but emails showed her acknowledging the statements as she helped secure financing for multiple Trump Org properties.
While Trump initially floated the idea of buying both Doral and the Old Post Office with cash, they eventually got financing from Deutsche Bank — which was excited about its relationship with the Trump real estate empire, Ivanka said, when asked by Suarez.
She confirmed that she received $4 million from the sale of the Trump Hotel in Washington DC in May 2022.
Ivanka and her brothers each owned 7.5 % of the property and their dad had owned the rest, 77.5%.
Solomon asked Ivanka around how much she made from the sale, and she replied that she did not recall the “exact” amount — but he then produced a document showing that the former first daughter received $4 million from the deal.
“That’s consistent with my recollection,” Ivanka then said.
Just before her testimony ended at around 4:20 p.m., Ivanka was asked to reflect on her time at the Trump Organization, which she left in 2017 to go work for her dad in the White House.
“I feel incredibly proud of the work I did at the Trump Hotel and these two redevelopments specifically,” she said, referring to the Washington DC hotel and the Trump National Doral Golf Club.
She said that her efforts “took a lot of vision and hard work.”
“They were hard projects but we delivered on every metric,” she added.
Ivanka was the AG’s last witness and Trump’s side is set to begin calling witnesses on Monday.
The trial is slated to end around Dec. 15.
