Former President Donald Trump’s niece believes that his daughter, Ivanka Trump, will end up betraying her father when she takes the stand in the business fraud trial currently underway in New York.
Mary Trump, who has often criticized her uncle in the past, said on her “The Mary Trump Show” podcast recently that she believes Ivanka will throw her father “under the bus” when she has to testify in the case.
For the podcast, Mary Trump did a preview of the trial alongside reporter Molly Jong-Fast, as part of a video that was sent exclusively just to the subscribers of her newsletter.
Both Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the two oldest sons of the former president, took the stand in the fraud trial this week. They are both parties in the case that was brought by Letitia James, the Democratic attorney general of New York.
She has claimed that the Trumps and the Trump Organization inflated the value of their assets at times so they could receive better insurance coverage, and then they deflated their assets at other times so they could pay lower taxes.
Ivanka Trump also was at one point a party in this same lawsuit. Back in June, though, an appeals court dismissed her from the case, saying that too much time had passed between when she was last involved in the company and when the suit was filed.
Ivanka’s lawyers had argued that James’ office had no jurisdiction on which to force her to testify at the trial. But the judge overseeing the case, Arthur Engoron, ultimately ruled that she had to comply with the subpoena that was issued to her.
Her legal team has since appealed his ruling.
Speaking in advance of this week’s testimony, Mary Trump said she believed that Donald Trump Jr. was the “least equipped to do this.”
She explained:
“They’re going to have to walk a very thin line between obfuscating in a way that’s not perjury and appeasing their father’s ego so that he doesn’t throw them under the bus when he testifies, which of course he’s going to do no matter what they do.”
Both Jong-Fast and Mary Trump agreed that they believe Ivanka will “tell the truth” while on the stand “and throw him under the bus.”
They both said they believe that since Ivanka Trump is “legitimately wealthy,” which is unlike her two brothers, she doesn’t have to rely on her father for her future. As such, she doesn’t need to protect him and hold anything back while appearing in court.
During his testimony this week, Donald Trump Jr. said that he was certainly involved in business dealings at the Trump Organization, especially licensing deals that allowed third-party companies to open hotels and use the Trump family name on them.
However, when it came to accounting measures – which are what’s at question in this case – he was never involved and always left it to the professionals.
