subpoenaed barbie

Holy crap, Ivanka’s legal troubles just got way, way worse

After taking nearly 10 months off from social media, Ivanka Trump returned to Twitter yesterday to post photos of herself handing out boxes of food over the holidays. Unfortunately, her act of performative altruism was overshadowed by a new court filing by her archnemesis New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Late last night, James filed a motion seeking a court order to force Ivanka, Don Jr., and their dad to cooperate with the ongoing civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s shady financial dealings after they refused to comply with the subpoenas she sent them last month.

Related: Ivanka really, really, really doesn’t want to comply with that scary subpoena she just got

James says her probe, which was first launched in 2019, has uncovered “significant evidence” not only to suggest the company lied about the value of multiple assets and misrepresented those values to financial institutions for economic benefit, but that Ivanka and Don Jr. oversaw the entire thing.

“Since 2017, Donald Trump, Jr. has had authority over numerous financial statements containing misleading asset valuations,” James wrote in the court filing.

Meanwhile, Ivanka “was a primary contact for the Trump Organization’s largest lender, Deutsche Bank. In connection with this work, Ms. Trump caused misleading financial statements to be submitted to Deutsche Bank and the federal government,” James added.

NBC News reports:

Banks and other lenders need to know the precise financial condition of loan applicants before they make loans. If a company overstates its financial condition in order to get a loan, making its finances seem rosier than they really are, that can be considered fraud. The filing says that Trump’s financial statements “were generally inflated as part of a pattern to suggest that Mr. Trump’s net worth was higher than it otherwise would have appeared.”

Related: It sure seems like Tiffany Trump and her mom are trolling Ivanka right now

The Trumps have been fighting subpoenas from James for weeks, arguing that she has “no case” and that forcing them to testimony would set a “dangerous precedent.”

They’ve also questioned the attorney general’s motives and accused her of trying to get their testimony in a civil case for the sole purpose of handing it over to criminal prosecutors later on.

“Her allegations are baseless and will be vigorously defended,” the Trump Organization said in a statement.

James’ latest move came on the same day Rudy Giuliani and several other members of Trump’s legal team that tried to overturn the 2020 election results were subpoenaed by a House committee investigating January 6.

Here’s what Twitter is saying about the whole thing…

Graham Gremore is the Features Editor and a Staff Writer at Queerty. Follow him on Twitter @grahamgremore.

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