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Mary Trump, the estranged niece of former President Donald Trump, mocked Ivanka Trump on Friday over a judge's ruling that she must testify in her father's business fraud trial, saying Ivanka couldn't buy her way out of testifying.
Judge Arthur Engoron made the decision regarding Ivanka Trump during a Friday hearing, siding with New York Attorney General Letitia James' argument that Ivanka should be compelled to testify in the trial.
James' $250 million lawsuit against the former president accuses him of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to obtain benefits such as better bank loans and reduced tax bills between 2011 and 2021. Trump has maintained his innocence in the case while accusing prosecutors of having a political agenda against him.
"It's nice to know that even though money might get you an invitation to Kim Kardashian's birthday party, it's not going to get you out of testifying against your dad," Mary Trump wrote on X, formerly Twitter, of her cousin.
The business fraud case involves Donald Trump, The Trump Organization, Trump's adult sons and several executives. Ivanka Trump was originally a party in the lawsuit, but a New York appeals court this summer ruled the claims against her were barred by the statute of limitations and dismissed her from the case.
In his ruling about Ivanka Trump, Engoron called the trial "a search for truth" and said the public has a right to hear "every person's evidence." However, he decided Ivanka Trump would not have to take the witness stand by November 1 in order to give her lawyers time to appeal his decision.
In her post about Engoron's decision, Mary Trump included a snippet from Ivanka Trump's 2020 video testimony to the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.
During the testimony, Ivanka Trump said she had "accepted" former Attorney General William Barr's assessment that dismissed Donald Trump's claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
BREAKING: Judge Arthur Engoron has ordered Ivanka to testify in the $250 million fraud case against Donald.
— Mary L Trump (@MaryLTrump) October 27, 2023
"While no longer a Defendant in this action, she indisputably has personal knowledge of facts relevant to the claims against the remaining individual and entity... pic.twitter.com/rUibZLgFLG
Newsweek reached out to Ivanka Trump's attorney Bennet Moskowitz for comment via email.
Mary Trump in recent years has emerged as a vocal critic of her uncle as well as of the Republican Party in general.
On Thursday, she criticized new House Speaker Mike Johnson in a video interview with historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat that she posted to her Substack newsletter, The Good in Us by Mary L. Trump.
"We now have, as speaker of the House, somebody who's a religious fanatic—homophobic, anti-woman, actually worse than Jim Jordan," Mary Trump said.
Earlier in the week, Mary Trump mocked her uncle for mistakenly referring to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as the "the leader of Turkey" during a televised speech.
"Man. Woman. Camera. TV. Moron," Mary Trump wrote in the caption of an X post that contained a clip of Donald's gaffe.
About the writer
Jon Jackson is a News Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more