Legal AF by MeidasTouch - COWARDLY Ivanka IS TOAST, Judge CLOBBERS Her in Ruling

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

In a bombshell development just this morning , Ivanka Trump — who thought, because she was dismissed from the case, and out from under a court imposed financial monitor, and because she never gave a deposition in the case— has been ordered to testify against Trump & her brothers and businesses, in the New York Attorney General civil fraud case. Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on the news this morning that after a hearing in front of Judge Engoron, and because Ivanka‘s lawyers forgot to file her sworn statement, Ivanka will be testifying over her objection.  This is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://BetterHelp.com/LEGALAF today to get 10% off your first month and get on your way to being your best self! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Burn the Boats: https://pod.link/1485464343 Majority 54: https://pod.link/1309354521 Political Beatdown: https://pod.link/1669634407 Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://pod.link/1676844320 Uncovered: https://pod.link/1690214260 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Salesforce, we're all about asking more of AI. Questions like, where's the data going? Is it secure? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? Get answers you can trust from Salesforce at AskMoreVai.com. This is Michael Popock. Breaking news, Ivanka Trump is being compelled to testify against her father and the Trump

organization in the civil fraud case brought by the New York Attorney General pending right now. That with an early morning hearing before the trial even began in front of Judge Angkoran, where lawyers for Ivanka Trump and for Donald Trump both argued vociferously to try to keep Ivanka Trump off the stand. Bennett Mosquitz, the new lawyer who's representing Ivanka Trump argued in his colorful style, Chris Keiss for Donald Trump argued in his sort of cut and dry style, but neither of them were effective because at the end, Judge Engoron also citing that there was no sworn statement or affidavit filed by Ivanka Trump at all.

And she was late and out of time having missed her deadline, granted the position of the New York Attorney General in his forcing and compelling Ivanka Trump to testify. It got to the judge with a motion to quash a subpoena. That was properly served on Ivanka Trump in her offices in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. That's where all the Trumpers ply their trade. They all operate out of Fifth Avenue. And so knock, knock, process server showed up and nailed Ivanka Trump with a subpoena, which gave the court at least on the surface jurisdiction over her. Now, the main argument before they got into court today in the filings, and we have the filings by the New York Attorney General and by the lawyers for Ivanka, the main arguments

for the New York Attorney General was there is a difference between Ivanka Trump being dismissed from the case based on claims that may be barred by the statute of limitations and her having knowledge and evidence of issues that are germane to the fraud case. Just because there's no suit against you doesn't mean you can't be what's called in New York a precipiant witness, a witness who with their five senses can testify about other matters. So those are for the purposes of this, a horse of a different color in a witness being dismissed as a defendant, yet still having the ability to give testimony. And that's one major issue that the Office of Attorney General pointed out to the judge. Also just because she got out from being monitored, recall that Donald Trump

and all the Trump organizations are under strict financial scrutiny and monitoring, even to this moment, pursuant to an earlier order by this judge last year in which he found persistent fraud and installed a financial monitor, former federal judge Barbara Jones to monitor all of the money flow in and out and transactions and make reports to the court. Yvonne Cattrump was able to get out from under that arguing that she's been outside of the organization since 2017 and she's a mom and Florida. And so we were a little surprised then that the New York Attorney General let her out.

She also did not, the office of attorney general, did not actually put Ivanka Trump under oath during the investigation and get her testimony sworn in a deposition. She did, she was interviewed, but she did not, she was not deposed, but all that doesn't matter. You don't have to, as a precondition of putting a witness on the stand, and I'm talking now as a 32 year trial lawyer,

you don't have to depose that person. You wanna hear their sworn testimony for the first time in a courtroom? That's fine, I've done that. I've made strategic or tactical decisions not to depose somebody in advance of trial because I thought it was to my advantage because I'm very good in cross-examining on my feet

as I expect the 10 different lawyers, 10 for the New York attorney general that are working this case, who all signed the recent brief. The major argument in the courtroom today by Bennett Mosquits was the court doesn't have jurisdiction over Ivanka Trump and the court quickly dispatched that after hearing argument from the attorney general. She was working out of her office in New York. She was served personally in New York and she has personal knowledge of particularly the transaction involving the old post office, which is referred to in the court filings as the OPO.

In fact, Ivanka has a limited liability company that she gets benefit from and profits from and made four or five million dollars from, which is called Ivanka O P O, which stands for old post office. That was the government property that Trump bought before the presidency and he made it into a hotel and then he made all his donors and people that were trying to lobby him, go spend money at his hotel in order to curry favor with them. Yeah, that is a violation of the constitutional Amal humans clause. That's another hot take.

Ivanka Trump is as the office of attorney general pointed out in their filings. She's up to her neck and all things Trump and financial dealings. For example, in the papers, because Ivanka forced them to, in the papers filed by the Office of Attorney General, one of my favorite parts is this one about her involvement with the Trump Organization or how neat deep she's in here. Watch this. This is on page eight and nine of the opposition to the motion to quash the subpoena. Finally, Ms. Trump, this is the Office of Attorney General, remains under the control of the Trump organization.

Think about that for a moment, including through her ongoing and substantial business ties to the organization. Ms. Trump reappointed herself to a participating member of several Trump organization entities following her departure from government. Remember she had that special advisor to the president thing. Moreover, she does not seem to be adverse. Listen to this. This is pages eight and nine. She does not seem to be adverse to her involvement in the family business when it comes to owning and collecting proceeds from the OPO sale, the Trump organization purchasing insurance for her and her companies, managing her household staff and credit card bills, meaning she's putting credit card bills through the company, renting her apartment or even paying her legal fees in this action. It is only when she is tasked with answering for the involvement,

for that involvement that she disclaims any connection, but her attempts now to distance herself from her family's business carries no legal weight. Just to remind everybody about some recent testimony that happened in the courtroom, just recently about Ivanka Trump to show her involvement, it has to do with the very heart of the case, the cooked books, the false artificial inflation of assets

on Donald Trump's books that had no tether to, was not tether to reality or truth. And they used a great example with a appraiser and a banker who already testified in the case involving property for Ivanka Trump. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Seasonal blues are real. I know in my own life I've experienced the ups and downs around this time.

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It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist any time for no additional charge. Find your bright spot this season with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash legal AF today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.htlp.com slash legal AF. I'll give you two examples from the trial already to show you how underhanded all of this is and Ivanka's are all in it.

Ivanka was offered a apartment in Trump tower in one of the properties for eight and a half million dollars. Okay. That needs to be fair market value under the internal revenue code or it's a, there's there's tax that has to be paid on phantom income or on this phantom advantage between the difference of what the market value is and what she was offered. So let's assume it was market value at eight and a half million dollars that they weren't completely violating the internal revenue code. That's for another hot take. It was valued that same property, eight and a half million to

Ivanka, was valued on Donald Trump's books at 20 million, 20.8 million. And it gets better. She was offered another apartment for $14.2 million. Yet it was reflected at the same time on Donald Trump's books at $45 million. You see the fraud? The thing is really worth 14, but you tell the world, the bankers, the lenders, the insurance companies, and others that it's worth 45. And that, that involves Ivanka. So what do we learn today? Well, Bennett Mosquit's got up and argued for Ivanka Trump in the hearing today that the court doesn't have any jurisdiction. The first thing the court hit him with is Mr. Mosquititz, where is your client sworn affidavit on these points?

In other words, naked argument of legal counsel is not evidence. Where is the evidence on these things? And just to do a little breakout, legal AF law school, when you submit evidence, you either have to show up in court like where was she today for the judge to take testimony of her under oath or you try it with an affidavit or what's called a verified filing where you're verifying under penalties of perjury that everything in that filing is true.

They didn't do any of that. It's just an unsworn, unverified motion to quash the subpoena with no, no supporting evidence. And the judges, where is your evidence, sir? Where is your affidavit? And he says, well, I'll get it now. And the judge in ruling against Mr. Mosquitz today said, this is basic one oh one law. It's black letter law. Today's the day, the hearing is today. It was noticed today due processes today. I'm ruling today. And that's the day you need to get your affidavit and not some other time. And no, I'm not going to give you the ability to submit a late affidavit. Mr. Mosquitz also went on in a very colorful language to

say and got corrected by the judge at one point. He started to say that, you know, given that she was never deposed and she's, you know's no longer affiliated and she's not. Her company is a Delaware corporation and it doesn't really operate in New York to which the attorney general said, oh, so she's breaking the law there too because she's working out of New York in Trump Tower. Yet she claims that it's not authorized to do business in New York, meaning she Trump Ivanka violated New York law. No surprise, It runs in the family. It's like DNA. It's in their DNA because she needed to register her company in New York. If it's going to do business there, even if it's incorporated somewhere else. So put that aside for a minute. So that at one point,

Moscow, it said, well, they, there, there's the breaks, your honor, and the judge, of course, he knows in Damon Runyones-esque fashion, all of the great sayings and phrases, he said, no, the phrase is them's the brakes, Mr. Mosquits, which was very chilling because the judge in a very tart fashion was able to use the guy's own struggle to grasp the phrase against him. In other words, I'm going to rule against you and them's the breaks. Keist stood up for Donald Trump to argue this is, she has no role here. This is a media event. They're just trying to penalize. She's a, she's no longer a child of Donald Trump. She's,

she's the makes her own decisions and why is she here? And they never, they never deposed her and they, and the judge stopped them and said, well, her, her testifying is not a complete shot in the dark, right, Mr. Keiss? You have a general idea of what her testimony would be in her involvement in the case, even though she's no longer, and she's skated by it, it's not going to be, it's not a defendant in the case. It's not like you're totally clueless about what you could testify to. And then there was this fight over whether the testimony should just be about her involvement

and benefiting from the old post office transaction. And eventually the office of attorney general prevailed because the judge's order is she takes to stand without limit. And even though the other side has no idea where this is going. And that's the beauty of the brass, the cajonus of the Office of Attorney General, having not taken her deposition. That means while the Office of Attorney General doesn't know exactly what she's gonna say, although they have documents to keep her on track

and disciplined, neither does the Trump organization and the Trump lawyers and the lawyers for Ivanka. They don't know where it's going either because she was never deposed. See the beauty of this? But you have to have tremendous confidence in your skills, in your evidence in order to cross examination, some cross examine someone on the fly who's a hostile witness without having previously to pose that person. That's why I love about the New York Attorney General.

Just shows you the confidence they have in their case. But on the other side, they got to be quaking in their boots because they don't know where she's going to go. And their attempts to limit the testimony have fallen on deaf ears when it comes to the judge. So it's going to just be, you know, Ivanka unplugged. Ivanka unplugged, where no one knows where she's going. I mean, look, they'll try to prepare the best they can

in advance of her actually taking the stand, her lawyers anyway. You know, they'll show her documents with her name on it. We already know the old post office is gonna come up. We know the valuation of her apartments and why it's valued, you know, 10 times, five times more on the books and records than what she was offered in a purchase price. And they're going to get her to say that that was the price that she was offered was the

market price. If she says something differently, she's got an internal revenue code problem. That's for sure. I mean, she's got problems anyway. So if Ivanka Trump, here's the end of the hot take. If Ivanka Trump thought that she was going to be able, because the, uh, a pellet court first department ruled that the transactions she was involved with were beyond the statute of limitations. So they had a dropper as a defendant that that also and, and she was able to get out from under being monitored financially with an argument to the New York Attorney General that she's no longer involved with the company since she's

down in Florida. If she thought all of that meant she wasn't going to be compelled to testify against her father, her brother, her brother's Eric in Don Jr. and the Trump organization, you know, as a, then she was, she was mistaken and to end it on the note of the judge, Dems the brakes, Miss Trump, you are taking the stand, we'll report on it right here. You know where on legal AF and on the Midas Touch network, we do hot takes like this one at the intersection of law politics and justice about every hour or half hour all the way 24 hours a day. MidasTouch.com has a newsroom of people banging away on keyboards.

That's my banging away on keyboards emoji. I'm banging away on keyboards to bring you original content and to bring you this reporting. The three leaders of legal AF, Michael Popuck, me, Ben Myceles, Karen Friedman, Ignifalo, we work around the clock, not only on our podcast, legal AF, yep, that's what you think. On Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time, but we supplement it with these hot takes. We don't blow smoke or sunshine,

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Until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Maynidas Mighty, love this report, continue the conversation by following us on Instagram, at MidasTouch to keep up with the most important news of the day. What are you waiting for? Follow us now.