We watched
Ivanka Trump walk in
like she owned the place.
Right. She's now on the stand.
A very different moment.
Most people get very nervous
when you're sitting there
and having to be questioned under oath.
I am curious.
She's the fourth member
of the of the Trump family to to testify.
What are they going
to try to get out of her?
Because she is not in this case.
She was taken out of this case
as a defendant.
Well, she does add
some important elements here.
For example,
she was the principal person
for the Trump Organization
that did the negotiations
for the old post office building
that was turned into that hotel
that Donald Trump used to house
various foreign
diplomats
to get lots of money for himself
while he was president.
But what she really did
was in negotiating
with Deutsche Bank
for the loan, $170 million loan,
it was very clear
that Deutsche Bank
wanted personal financial statements
from Donald Trump,
not only to make the $170 million loan,
but to keep it going all of those years.
And the reason is obvious
Donald Trump filed for bankruptcy six
different times.
And what it does
is it undercuts his testimony last week
that the banks really didn't care.
They clearly cared.
And if the AG is careful, they will
delineate all of those conversations
about how important
those financial statements
were to getting that $170 million loan.
Can you give us sort of an overview
of what hangs in the balance here?
Because we're hearing all these details.
You're seeing all these family members
come up.
You're seeing the contention
between Donald Trump and the judge,
the lawyer, his lawyer and the judge.
But ultimately, this is over fines.
Right. And money, correct.
Lots of money.
At least $250 million
the AG is trying to receive.
And basically at this point,
Donald Trump is toast.
I mean, he is basically going to be found
to be a liar by the judge here.
What people haven't focused on
is not just his testimony last week, but
it's also the testimony
he gave in his deposition.
Where he took the Fifth Amendment
over 400 times.
Now, what does it mean
to take the Fifth Amendment?
It means that you are refusing
to answer a question
because a truthful answer
would tend to be incriminating.
Then what did Donald Trump do last week?
He went into court and said, oh,
I didn't do anything fraudulent.
I wasn't involved in a fraud,
which is just the opposite
of what, in effect,
he was saying
when he took the Fifth Amendment
in this deposition.
So you've got contradictory testimony.
You can use his assertion
of the Fifth Amendment
against him
to basically find that he's lying,
that he's manipulating the system
when he goes
in, refuses to answer
questions,
answers the questions
and a half baked manner.
I just don't see how this judge
at the end of the day,
is not going to find that
with respect to Donald Trump.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
I knew you were going to say that.
And that is where we're going to end
here.
We're going back to elementary school.
But it is elemental.
There are things that you're either
telling the truth
or you're not on the stand. Right.
Or in a deposition.
And we should mention,
everybody has the right to the fifth
to plead the Fifth.
But this is a civil trial,
not a criminal trial. Correct.
That can get you in trouble
in the civil
trial
as opposed to a criminal, particularly
when you take an opposite position.
Right.
I have been practicing civil law for
well over 40 years.
I have had a number of defendants
take the Fifth Amendment.
I have never seen anybody
do such a stupid move
as to suddenly start testifying
after you've taken this
very unusual move.
Nick Almond, thank you.
It's always nice to see you.
Let's get an update
now with CNN chief legal affairs
correspondent Paula Reid.
Paula, caught currently on a lunch break.
Walk us through what we saw
earlier in the day.
Well, this has been much less
chaotic and contentious
and it was when her father
and her brothers have taken the stand
in this case.
So far,
the questions have been focusing
on her time
at the Trump Organization
before she left to work
at the White House in 2017.
And they've asked about
some specific projects
that she worked on.
Let's take, for example,
the Doral Trump Doral down in Florida,
the resort and spa.
She was working on the financing
for that project.
And in one really notable exchange,
they show how the bank wanted
Trump to maintain
a net worth of $3 billion
in order to
have these more favorable loan terms.
But she suggested lowering
that threshold to $2 billion.
Now they settled on 2.5 before
that is significant
because at the heart of this case,
is an allegation that he was
maybe not being honest
about his net worth.
And at the time
he had cited his net worth back
then in 2011 as being around $4 billion
They also asked about the old post office
here in Washington, D.C.,
which they converted into a Trump Hotel,
and how the government
had questions for her
about exactly how they had compiled
their financial statements.
Now they also asked her
about a penthouse apartment
that she had
in one of her father's buildings.
It had a purchase option of $8.5 million,
but in her father's
personal valuation
it was valued at 20.8 million.
So all this goes
to the heart of the case,
but so far they've really been focused
on pretty technical questions.
It's been pretty calm,
pretty professional.
Quite a contrast to what
we've seen over the past few days.
And we should point out,
she's not a defendant in the case,
but she could provide valuable testimony
for the prosecution.
Paul Reed, thank you so much for that.
Let's dig deeper
now with former US attorney Harry Litman.
Harry, thanks so much for being with us
this afternoon.
What did you make of
Ivanka's testimony so far?
Well, as
Paula said, you know,
it didn't seem as electric
and contentious.
If you just wandered into the trial,
you would think,
in fact,
it was kind of dull
and at many critical junctures.
She said,
I don't recall, but it was important
because she really fills
an important piece of the puzzle.
She's the one who does take control
of getting financing of both
the projects that Paula mentioned.
And in order to get it,
the regular Deutsche Bank commercial real
real estate
order will not deal with them.
They have to go to the
the private wealth
management group for super rich people.
Ivanka is the one that puts
that together.
That's how they get
a much better interest deal.
But it requires Trump to sign on
and a test year after year
that he has this net worth
that is almost certainly going
to turn out to be a lie.
So even though there's no dramatic moment
where she betrays Daddy
nevertheless,
she fills in why he needed to say that
and why,
in fact,
the accounts in the complaint
that say he lied about it.
Ah, it strengthens exactly those counts.
So, Harry,
let's sort of clarify that point,
because it was significant when she
testified to
confirming what was in that email
that said that she suggested
that he should lower
his minimum net worth
in that Deutsche Bank deal
to two
to two and a half million dollar,
$1,000,000,000, I should say.
How does that play into
what prosecutors are looking for here?
Isn't an admission
that he
was inflating his net worth previously
I mean, not exactly, but it shows
she knows it's an issue.
And even more to the point, Boris.
She is the one who deals with the banker
there and says, oh, my God,
this is a great rate.
Let's go for it
and writes
her and says, you're the best, Rosemarie.
It shows that they get this great deal
only because Trump makes these promises.
That's the important evidentiary point.
Then they will show
independently these promises
that he made were lies
and he repeated them year after year.
So she really does
establish the relationship
and set up for the falsity
that they are proving
otherwise from Trump's statements
when it comes to her
testifying that she couldn't recall
a number of of different
financial dealings,
specifically on the penthouse
that she leaves from her father.
His valuation
like $12 million
more than what it actually was worth.
How does the Trump team
read that testimony
the fact that she doesn't recall
some of these things
You know
I think in general
where she could avoid hurting him
she did and there wasn't a
you know a moment in this testimony
that really added to things
but it was the testimony
she'd already given before.
So I think in general, as Paula says,
she is poised
and polite
quite a contrast to the other Trumps.
And she does
disavow recalling certain big points.
But what they are going to use
her for, have used her for
is to really set up
Trump's lies themselves.
She otherwise doesn't advance the ball.
But that advance is a pretty big advance.