MANHATTAN (CN) — Donald Trump is slated to testify at his civil fraud trial in Manhattan on Nov. 6, the New York attorney general’s office said Friday. His children Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump are all scheduled to take the stand starting Nov. 1.
The news comes just days after Donald Trump was forced to the witness stand for an impromptu hearing on whether or not he violated his gag order. This time, he’ll be testifying for real as Judge Arthur Engoron prepares to rule on the extent of the Trump Organization’s fraud.
On Friday morning, Engoron ruled that Ivanka Trump will still have to testify in her father’s civil fraud trial, despite her lawyers’ efforts to quash the subpoenas requiring her to do so.
Engoron sided with the attorney general’s office in finding that Ivanka Trump is still entangled in Donald Trump’s business and must take the witness stand. He noted that Ivanka Trump will have the opportunity to appeal his decision, however, as she wouldn’t be taking the witness stand before next week.
Last week, Ivanka Trump’s lawyers filed a 12-page letter asking the court to strike down her trial subpoenas to testify on the grounds that she is no longer a defendant, nor a New York resident.
“Trial subpoenas are not a means for parties to get discovery, which they failed to obtain during pretrial proceedings,” Ivanka Trump’s attorney Bennett Moskowitz wrote in the letter. “The NYAG, which never deposed Ms. Trump, is effectively trying to force her back into this case from which she was dismissed.”
But the attorney general’s office argued in a Thursday court filing that Ivanka Trump “remains financially and professionally intertwined with the Trump Organization and other defendants and can be called as a person still under their control.”
The memo notes that, despite her apparent efforts to distance herself from the Trump Organization and her family, she continues to benefit from her proximity to them. She still uses the company to purchase insurance for her and her businesses, oversee her personal staff, manage credit card bills and even pay her legal fees, attorneys wrote in the filing.
“It is only when she is tasked with answering for that involvement that she disclaims any connection,” the attorney general’s office wrote. “But her attempt now to distance herself from her family’s business carries no legal weight.”
In their own Thursday filing, the defense lawyers countered that the attorney general’s office “simply seeks herein to continue to harass and burden President Trump’s daughter long after the First Department mandated she be dismissed from the case.”
Ultimately, Engoron didn’t buy that argument. Prior to Friday’s scheduled testimonies, Engoron heard oral arguments on the matter before ruling that Ivanka Trump will have to take the stand after all.
Ivanka Trump is no longer a defendant in the $250 million fraud lawsuit, unlike her brothers Eric and Donald Jr. She was dropped from the case in June when the Appellate Division of New York’s Supreme Court ruled that her actions fell outside of the statute of limitations.
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