Ivanka’s chaotic legal strategy in family fraud lawsuit keeps backfiring on her

Ivanka Trump is playing hard to get with the New York Attorney General, but it’s not totally clear what the former first daughter’s end game is, or if she even has one.

New York AG Letitia James says Ivanka has been refusing to hand over documents as the deadline for providing evidence required by the discovery phase of the Trump Organization’s $250 million civil fraud lawsuit draws closer.

The lawsuit accuses ex-president Donald Trump, as well Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, of lying about property values to secure cheaper loans for the Trump Organization. In addition to imposing a $250 million fine, James is seeking to bar the Trumps from conducting business in the state of New York for the rest of their lives.

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Ivanka’s “pained” 15-word statement on Trump’s indictment feels more like a giant F.U. to her dad

Ivanka is pained. She’s pained for her father, she’s pained for her country, but most of all, she seems pained for herself.

According to the James’ office, Ivanka’s lawyers have pretty much quit cooperating with state authorities and are withholding documents being requested. Specifically, they’ve been hanging onto thousands and thousands of emails sent by Ivanka between 2014 and 2017.

When asked what the hold up was, Ivanka’s camp gave “no substantive answer”.

“Defendants have either ignored the inquiries, provided non-substantive responses, or passed the buck to counsel no longer engaged in the case,” James’ office claimed in a court filing this week.

“The time to meet-and-confer on these issues has long since passed. The fairest and simplest way to resolve these issues is for Defendants to provide sworn certifications detailing the process they followed for preserving, searching and producing documents in response to [office of the attorney general] discovery notices.”

Last month, Ivanka informed the court that she fired her entire legal team and was starting from scratch with attorney Bennet Moskowitz. She had previously been working with attorneys Clifford Robert and Michael Farina, who are representing her brothers, Don Jr. and Eric, in the case.

No explanation was given as to why she was suddenly splitting with her brothers. But Moskowitz, who is perhaps most famous for representing the estate of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, is now Ivanka’s sole attorney and is not helping her brothers.

Related:

Ivanka officially abandons ship, leaving her brothers to drown

It’s everyone for themselves…

In response to accusations that the failed handbag designer is withholding evidence, Moskowitz assured the court “there has been no lack of diligence and no stonewalling.” Although Ivanka’s past behavior suggests otherwise.

Just last month, she tried to get the trail delayed by telling New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who’s been overseeing the case, that she had absolutely positively nothing to do with any of the fraudulent behavior alleged by James and so her name must be removed from the lawsuit for it to proceed any further.

Her lawyers argued the lawsuit “does not contain a single allegation that Ms. Trump directly or indirectly created, prepared, reviewed, or certified any of her father’s financial statements.”

“Other individuals were responsible for those tasks,” they wrote. (The “other individuals” presumably being her dad and brothers.)

Engoron was unmoved, however, and said the trail would begin October 2 as planned. Now, he’s ordered her team to submit affidavits under threat of perjury describing their exact process for providing evidence to James’ office.

The discovery phase of the lawsuit is set to end June 5, meaning Ivanka has exactly one month to get her sh*t together or face harsh penalties.

In other Ivanka news, here’s a picture of her at the Met Gala earlier this week…

.@IvankaTrump arriving on the #MetGala red carpet tonight. pic.twitter.com/C4Ri42MrxZ

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) May 1, 2023