Bad news for Ivanka Trump
There’s this pervasive notion – completely false but often repeated anyway – that people can get out of grand jury subpoenas or trial subpoenas. It’s probably because people can drag out congressional subpoenas forever, but that’s a whole different beast.
There’s also the pervasive notion – again totally false – that a witness can “decide”whether to testify in a trial, and can simply plead the fifth instead. This probably comes from the fact that defendants and suspects don’t have to testify against themselves. But if you’re just a witness, you always have to testify. It’s automatic. There’s never any getting out of it.
So when the New York courts ruled months ago that Ivanka Trump was exempt from being a defendant in the New York civil fraud case due to the statute of limitations, it was only partially good news for her. Yes, she was off the hook for damages in the case. But it also meant that, as a witness with no remaining liability of her own, she was automatically required to testify against the rest of her family. There was no dragging out the subpoena. There was no pleading the fifth. She was simply going to have to testify at trial.
And now that time is upon us. Ivanka knows it too. She’s making last minute filings in court to try to get herself removed as a witness, citing silly reasons. To be clear, this kind of thing never works when it comes to trials. Nor does it ever delay things.
Within days Ivanka Trump will be on the stand testifying against her family. She can play the “I don’t recall” card a few times. But giving this answer an unreasonable number of times just gets you busted for contempt. And if you lie on the stand, you go down for perjury. Ivanka will have to give at least some incriminating answers about the family business. There’s no other realistic outcome here.
