Ivanka Trump sits for a deposition ordered by the Washington, D.C. Attorney General’s office as part of its investigation of the 2017 inauguration. The AG’s office is investigating whether the Presidential Inaugural Committee was used to funnel money to a Trump business.
In January, the DC attorney general’s office sued the Trump Organization and Presidential Inaugural Committee alleging they abused more than $1 million raised by the nonprofit by “grossly overpaying” for use of event space at the Trump hotel in Washington for the 2017 inauguration. Depositions of witnesses as part of the lawsuit have been underway over the past several weeks.
CNN
When asked who Allen Weisselberg is, Ivanka claims she doesn’t know his job title. Weisselberg has been the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer since the early 1970s. Ivanka was an executive vice president at the company for over a decade.
Her father’s then-lawyer and fixer suggests Ivanka is lying. Lying under oath is perjury, a felony, and although this lie is a small one, it indicates she probably lied about more significant questions, too.
Two days later, Ivanka calls the investigation a “politically motivated demonstration of vindictiveness & waste of taxpayer dollars.” She also shares a screenshot of an email with Rick Gates, which she believes clears her from any involvement in misusing the inaugural funds.
“Why don’t you call and negotiate,” Ms. Trump wrote the hotel’s managing director Mickael Damelincourt and Trump Hotels CEO Eric Danziger on Dec. 14, 2016. “It should be fair market rate.”
Using the message to attack the “Democrat D.C. AG’s” probe as an expression of “politically motivated vindictiveness,” Ms. Trump did not post the message that she received some three days later from Melania Trump’s ex-senior adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who warned that the cost [provided to her by Rick Gates] would come back to haunt them.
“Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge that locations were also gifted and costs underwritten to lower rental fees,” Wolkoff told Ms. Trump, her father’s disgraced ex-campaign aide Rick Gates, and two other people on Dec. 17, 2016. “I understand that compared to the original pricing this is great but we should look at the whole context. In my opinion the max rental fee should be $85,000 per day.”
Law & Crime
The attorney general’s evidence suggests that the committee ended up overpaying Trump International Hotel by at least $300,000 despite Ivanka Trump’s email and Wolkoff’s warning.
External Sources
CNN (Archived)
The Daily Beast (Archived)
Law & Crime (Archived)
Photo: Gage Skidmore