Ivanka Trump testified on Wednesday that she had no role in her father’s personal financial statements, echoing her adult brothers about documents central to the civil fraud trial that could reshape Donald Trump’s family business.
The former US president’s elder daughter, who has been in his inner circle in both business and politics, completes a run of key witnesses in the trial.
Her father took the stand on Monday, and her brothers Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr testified last week.
Unlike her father and brothers, Ms Trump is no longer a defendant in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit.
It alleges that Donald Trump’s asset values were fraudulently pumped up for years on annual “statements of financial condition” that helped him get loans and insurance.
“I wasn’t involved in his statement of financial condition,” Ms Trump, a former executive vice president at the family’s Trump Organisation, told the court during even-tempered testimony that provided a counterpoint to her father’s caustic turn on the stand.
Before leaving the company to go with her father to the White House, Ms Trump was the point person in establishing a lending relationship with Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management arm.
It eventually extended the company hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, with terms that required Donald Trump to submit his financial statements each year.
Ivanka Trump testified that her husband, Jared Kushner, introduced her to a banker as the Trumps were seeking financing to buy and overhaul the Doral golf resort near Miami.
The non-jury trial will decide allegations of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records – but Judge Arthur Engoron already has resolved the lawsuit’s top claim by ruling that Trump engaged in fraud.
That decision came with provisions that could strip the ex-president of oversight of such marquee properties as Trump Tower, though an appeals court is allowing him continued control of his holdings, at least for now.
Ms James, a Democrat, is seeking more than $300 million in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.
The former president and Republican 2024 front-runner denies any wrongdoing, as do the other defendants.
He insisted in court Monday that his financial statements greatly underestimated his net worth, that any discrepancies were minor, that a disclaimer absolved him of liability and that “this case is a disgrace”.
Ms Trump was an executive vice president at the Trump Organisation before becoming an unpaid senior adviser in her father’s White House.
Her brothers are still Trump Organisation vice presidents, and they became trustees of a trust set up to run the company when their father went to the White House.
The sons also have professed minimal knowledge of their father’s annual financial statements.
