Ivanka Trump

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      in US Politics

      Ivanka Trump will lose White House status and job – what will she do next?

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      Ivanka Trump isn’t just losing her status as first daughter with her father Donald Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden – she’s also losing her job.In her father’s White House, Ivanka Trump works as “advisor to the president”, purportedly focusing on “the education and economic empowerment of women and their families as well as job creation and economic growth through workforce development, skills training and entrepreneurship”.Before that, she “oversaw development and acquisitions” for her father’s real estate company, the Trump Organization, and had a fashion clothing line. She also appeared as a boardroom judge on Trump’s reality show, The Apprentice. But her role in the White House, and the fact that virtually her entire professional history is tied to her father, raise the question: What will she wind up doing?While Ivanka could probably return to the Trump Organization, it may not be the most stable workplace when her father leaves office. The Manhattan district attorney’s office is seeking Trump’s tax returns in a “complex financial investigation”, previously citing public reports on “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization” in their request.The New York state attorney general’s office is also investigating whether the Trump Organization and its agents wrongly inflated the value of Seven Springs estate, a property north of New York City. The state attorney general’s probe came after Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen told Congress that he had inflated his assets’ value, so as to get more favorable loans and insurance policies.But a return to the world of fashion also appears unlikely. Indeed, Ivanka Trump’s eponymous brand is no more. She announced its closure in July 2018, citing “the work I am doing here in Washington”. The circumstances preceding the announcement, however, weren’t promising. Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom dropped her line in 2017, claiming “poor performance”. There was also a campaign targeting online retailers, asking them to drop the brand in protest of Trump administration policies. More

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      in Elections

      The real reason Trump is terrified of losing the presidency: fear of prosecution | Samer S Shehata

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      The United States is hardly an autocracy; it might be better described as a flawed democracy. Yet its president, Donald Trump, behaves a lot like an autocrat – and it’s worth remembering, as the election looms, that autocratic leaders do not like to give up their power.
      Obviously, few autocrats are willing to relinquish the benefits that accompany political office. But there is another, more important, reason they often try to retain power at almost any cost, even after losing elections or completing their terms. After two decades of researching and writing about autocratic politics in the Middle East, I call this the autocrat’s dilemma: losing power can expose autocrats to accountability, prosecution and potential jail time. As a result, autocrats are often willing to break laws, rig elections, create chaos and even use violence to retain power.
      If Trump loses the election, there may be calls to investigate and prosecute him for possible crimes involving obstruction of justice, violating the emolument clause of the constitution, and/or tax fraud, among others. Citizen Trump would face investigation without the luxury of “executive privilege” or the legal chicanery of the attorney general, William Barr, who has acted more like Trump’s personal lawyer than the nation’s top law enforcement official, to protect him. Accordingly, Trump has even more reason to lie, cheat and sow discord in order to retain office, because losing the White House could land him in court or even behind bars.
      Although special prosecutor Robert Mueller did not produce a smoking gun proving Trump conspired with Russia in the 2016 election, he clearly stated that the investigation did not exonerate Trump of wrongdoing. After the investigation, over a thousand former federal prosecutors from both parties signed a letter stating that Trump’s conduct as described in the investigation would warrant “multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice” were it not for the Office of Legal Counsel’s policy of not indicting a sitting president.
      More recent criticisms of Mueller from top aides within the investigation allege Mueller did not go far enough in exposing collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. At the very least, there is a strong case that Trump obstructed the investigation. After he leaves office there will be vocal calls to get to the bottom of Russian election interference, his campaign’s alleged collusion, and to hold the former president accountable for obstruction of justice. The outcome could very well be a subpoena for the ex-president or even an indictment.
      Allegations of campaign finance violations related to the Stormy Daniels affair and financial irregularities regarding the president’s inauguration could also expose Trump to legal troubles. But perhaps the most likely reason Trump will end up in court after leaving office concerns his taxes. Trump’s recently revealed tax filings expose a series of ethically dubious and possibly illegal activities. If he loses in November, citizen Trump will likely face increasing pressure from agencies such as the IRS and the New York state attorney general’s office.
      Trump’s tax filings are brimming with shady dealings. In addition to not paying federal income tax in 10 of the 15 years preceding his election – and paying a mere $750 a year in 2016 and 2017 – Trump received a $72.9m refund from the IRS in 2010 after claiming more than a billion dollars in earlier losses. The massive refund is the subject of an ongoing IRS audit; an adverse outcome could force Trump to return the money, which, with penalties and interest, might total more than $100m.
      Trump’s tax filings include other dubious and possibly illegal practices. He paid his daughter Ivanka over $700,000 in “consulting fees” while she was a salaried employee of the Trump Organization. Such high-dollar “business expenses” not only benefited Ivanka, they reduced Trump’s own tax liability.
      An even bigger deduction concerns Trump’s Seven Springs estate an hour’s drive from New York. In addition to claiming a $21m tax deduction for not developing most of the 230-acre property (known as a conservation easement), Trump claimed the estate was an investment and not a personal residence, allowing him to deduct more than $2m in property taxes as business expenses. Yet Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr lived on the compound and the Trump Organization’s official webpage describes it as “a retreat for the Trump family”.

      Trump’s personal debt raises different sorts of questions about potential national security vulnerabilities that arise from a sitting president owing hundreds of millions of dollars to creditors. And the massive debts are another reason why Trump desperately wants to remain in the White House. The president owes over $300m in personally backed loans to Deutsche Bank, Ladder Capital and possibly other creditors, which mature in the next four years. If he were unable to pay back or refinance the loans, Deutsche Bank and Ladder could, although it’s unlikely, take legal action against him. As long as he remains president, however, neither lender would probably call the loans and risk forcing a sitting president into personal bankruptcy.
      Trump desperately wants to retain the presidency – not to “keep America Great” but to protect himself from future prosecution. His embrace of white supremacists and his calls to supporters to monitor polling places on election day (and intimidate Biden voters in the process) is an attempt to engineer an election victory through force. And by disputing the election’s integrity he is inciting post-election violence: another tactic with the same intended goal.
      When past presidents have lost re-election, they often return to their home states to plan presidential libraries, establish philanthropic foundations and give well-compensated corporate speeches. Trump’s post-presidency could look very different. This vote is not simply about an incumbent president standing for re-election: it is about two starkly different futures for Donald Trump.
      Samer S Shehata is an associate professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma More

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      in Elections

      'Sue if you must': Lincoln Project rejects threat over Kushner and Ivanka billboards

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      The Lincoln Project “will not be intimidated by empty bluster”, a lawyer for the group wrote late on Saturday, in response to a threat from an attorney for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner over two billboards put up in Times Square.“Sue if you must,” Matthew Sanderson said.The New York City billboards show the president’s daughter and her husband, both senior White House advisers, displaying apparent indifference to public suffering under Covid-19.Kushner is shown next to the quote “[New Yorkers] are going to suffer and that’s their problem”, above a line of body bags. Trump is shown gesturing, with a smile, to statistics for how many New Yorkers and Americans as a whole have died.According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 8.5m coronavirus cases have been recorded across the US and more than 224,000 have died. Case numbers are at record daily levels and one study has predicted 500,000 deaths by February. New York was hit hard at the pandemic’s outset.The Lincoln Project is a group of former Republican consultants who have made it their mission to attack Donald Trump and support Joe Biden.On Friday, Marc Kasowitz, an attorney who has represented the president against allegations of fraud and sexual assault, wrote to the Lincoln Project, demanding the “false, malicious and defamatory” ads be removed, or “we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages”.The Lincoln Project responded that they would not remove the billboards, citing first amendment rights of free speech and the “reckless mismanagement of Covid-19” by the Trump White House.In a legal response on Saturday night, attorney Matthew Sanderson told Kasowitz: “Please peddle your scare tactics elsewhere. The Lincoln Project will not be intimidated by such empty bluster … your clients are no longer Upper East Side socialites, able to sue at the slightest offense to their personal sensitivities.”Due to a “gross act of nepotism”, Sanderson wrote, citing supreme court precedent and “substantial constitutional protections for those who speak out”, Trump and Kushner have become public officials whom Americans “have the right to discuss and criticise freely”.Kasowitz claimed Kushner “never said” the words attributed to him on the billboards, and Trump “never made the gesture” she is shown to make.Vanity Fair reported the Kushner quote, from a meeting in March, in which Kushner criticised New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Trump tweeted the pose used by the Lincoln Project in July, controversially promoting Goya foods.The “bruised self-image” of the president’s daughter, Sanderson wrote, “does not change the fact that this billboard accurately depicts her support of a federal response that has utterly failed to prevent an unmitigated tragedy for the United States”.“May I suggest,” he added, “that if Mr Kushner and Ms Trump are genuinely concerned about salvaging their reputations, they would do well to stop suppressing truthful criticism and instead turn their attention to the Covid-19 crisis that is still unfolding under their inept watch.“These billboards are not causing [their] standing with the public to plummet. Their incompetence is.”A footnote to Sanderson’s letter cited “one of the seminal libel-proof plaintiff cases”, that of a well-known mobster whose reputation was “so tarnished … he could claim no damages for defamation”.“Mr Kushner and Ms Trump’s claims will fare no better than Boobie Cerasini’s given their tarnished reputations on Covid-19,” it said.Sanderson also said “this isn’t over” and added: “Sue if you must.”As University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told the Guardian on Saturday, that seems unlikely.Donald Trump “has honed litigation abuse, as a business person and president, to an art form,” Tobias said. But “if they did sue, the litigation might take years to resolve, be expensive and lead to embarrassing revelations … suits like this by people who have thrust themselves into the public eye are notoriously difficult to win.“In short, this appears to be the usual Trump family bluster.” More

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      in US Politics

      Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump threaten to sue Lincoln Project

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      Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have threatened to sue the Lincoln Project, if the anti-Trump Republicans do not remove two huge billboards from Times Square in New York City, in which they accuse the senior White House advisers of showing “indifference” to Americans suffering and dying under Covid-19.Saying the billboards would stay up, the group called Kushner and Trump “entitled, out-of-touch bullies, who have never given the slightest indication they have any regard for the American people”.More than 8.4m cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University, with a record high of 83,757 on Friday. As the virus surges, with the presidential election only 10 days away, the death toll has passed 223,000.Last month, the virus reached the White House, infecting Donald Trump, his wife Melania Trump, their son Barron and senior members of staff. The president spent time in hospital. Kushner and Ivanka Trump did not announce positive tests.The Lincoln Project is staffed by Republican operatives supporting Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee. It announced itself in February at Cooper Union in New York, where Abraham Lincoln gave a famous speech in 1860. Then, group member Rick Wilson cited “the great political philosopher Liam Neeson” when he said his team had “a particular set of skills, skills that make us a nightmare for people like Donald Trump”.In August, Sarah Lenti, the executive director of the Lincoln Project, told the Guardian a key aim was simply to distract the president.“Some of these ads have an audience of one,” she said. “That’s always been part of the strategy. Because every time he gets off message, spewing grievances, he’s not campaigning. The idea is to get him off message again and again and again.”Trump is currently staging rallies at which coronavirus mitigation measures are not observed, and claiming the US is “rounding the turn” in containing the surging pandemic.But with its billboards in Times Square, a stone’s throw from Trump Tower, it seems the Lincoln Project may have succeeded in distracting the president’s daughter and son-in-law. On Friday, the Project posted to Twitter a letter from Marc Kasowitz, an attorney who has represented Donald Trump in cases involving allegations of fraud and sexual assault, in which he spelled out the billboards’ message.“I am writing concerning the false, malicious and defamatory ads that the Lincoln Project is displaying on billboards in Times Square,” Kasowitz wrote. “Those ads show Ms Trump smiling and gesturing toward a death count of Americans and New Yorkers, and attribute to Mr Kushner the statement that ‘[New Yorkers] are going to suffer and that’s their problem’ … with body bags underneath.”In September, Vanity Fair reported that at a meeting on 20 March, as the pandemic accelerated, Kushner railed against Governor Andrew Cuomo and said: “His people are going to suffer and that’s their problem.”Ivanka Trump’s gesture on the billboard is taken from a controversial picture, tweeted in July, in which she promoted Goya black beans.Kasowitz wrote: “Of course, Mr Kushner never made any such statement, Ms Trump never made any such gesture, and the Lincoln Project’s representation that they did are an outrageous and shameful libel. If these billboard ads are not immediately removed, we will sue you for what will doubtless be enormous compensatory and punitive damages.”The Lincoln Project’s response was typically pugnacious.“The level of indignant outrage Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Trump have shown towards the Lincoln Project for exposing their indifference for the more than 223,000 people who have lost their lives due to the reckless mismanagement of Covid-19 is comical,” a statement said.“While we truly enjoy living rent-free in their heads, their empty threats will not be taken any more seriously than we take Ivanka and Jared. It is unsurprising that an administration that has never had any regard or understanding of our constitution would try to trample on our first amendment rights. But we fully intend on making this civics lesson as painful as possible.“Jared and Ivanka have always been entitled, out-of-touch bullies, who have never given the slightest indication they have any regard for the American people. We plan on showing them the same level of respect. The billboards will stay up. We consider it important that in Times Square, the crossroads of the world, people are continuously reminded of the cruelty or density and staggering lack of empathy the Trumps and the Kushners have displayed towards the American people.”In an email to the Guardian on Saturday, Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, said: “It does seem unlikely that Ivanka and Jared would actually sue the Lincoln Project, especially before election day, while after that hopefully they won’t care, can return to New York and stop pretending to be public servants.“Her father has honed litigation abuse as a business person and president, to an art form,” Tobias added, but “if they did sue, the litigation might take years to resolve, be expensive and lead to embarrassing revelations … suits like this by people who have thrust themselves into the public eye are notoriously difficult to win.“In short, this appears to be the usual Trump family bluster.” More

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      Revelation of vast 'consulting fees' threatens damage for Ivanka Trump

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      She has tried to be the acceptable face of Trumpism while seemingly nurturing political ambitions of her own. But Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, did not emerge from recent revelations over his financial affairs unscathed.A nugget in the New York Times’s investigation into the US president’s tax returns could potentially cause lasting damage to Ivanka, currently a senior adviser to the president and a leading surrogate for his re-election campaign.She apparently received “consulting fees” paid by the Trump Organization, helping reduce the Trump family’s tax bill, while she was simultaneously an employee of the organization.“Trump’s private records show that his company once paid $747,622 in fees to an unnamed consultant for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia,” the Times noted. “Ivanka Trump’s public disclosure forms – which she filed when joining the White House staff in 2017 – show that she had received an identical amount through a consulting company she co-owned.”While Trump was quick to issue his standard defense, dismissing the tax report as “fake news”, Ivanka has been conspicuously silent about her alleged violation. In the past she has worked to put daylight between herself and the biggest scandals of her father’s administration.Joshua Kendall, author of First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama, said: “There seems to be an overlap in terms of her declaring that same amount of money on her financial disclosure so this really could be very, very damaging. There has been some speculation about a criminal prosecution. This could really be a turning point for her.”Such a development would be a rare setback for Ivanka, 38, whose husband, Jared Kushner, is also a senior adviser at the White House, and who has long enjoyed perceived status as Trump’s golden child. She introduced him to the Republican national convention in 2016 and again this year, when she frequently used the first person pronoun to put herself at the heart of his presidency. Examples included: “I sat with him in the Oval Office as he stopped travel to Europe”; “I was with my father when he decided to commute Alice’s life sentence”; “I stood by my father’s side at Dover air force base as he has received our fallen heroes”.And: “Four years ago, I told you I would fight alongside my father, and, four years later, here I am.”The speech fueled speculation that Ivanka is positioning herself as an heir apparent. Maureen Dowd, a New York Times columnist, wrote: “Ivanka must realize now that she and Jared can never go back to their life as New York society darlings. So why not double down on Washington and lay the groundwork for a presidential run of her own?”The dynastic notion resurfaced this week when a book by Rick Gates, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, suggested that the Republican nominee wanted to name Ivanka as his running mate in 2016. Ivanka herself reportedly told her father it was not a good idea and he eventually chose Mike Pence.Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a group led by anti-Trump Republican consultants, dismissed the idea of Ivanka running for president in 2024 or beyond. “She and her bizarre android husband are planning great things for their future, but it doesn’t mean they’re gonna be viable in terms of winning and holding higher office,” he said.Other commentators suggest that, while Ivanka will follow her father’s example by shrugging off this latest political controversy, the legal implications could be more damaging.Michael D’Antonio, a political analyst and author of The Truth About Trump, said: “I think that she has ambition, period, so there’s no doubt that she imagines herself to be a prominent figure indefinitely. I don’t know Trumps believe that anything that comes out about them is significantly troublesome; they feel that they can talk their way out of anything where their base is concerned.“But this payment may have criminal repercussions that are more significant. If she knowingly accepted this money and did it with any understanding that it was in order to evade taxes, and then her father signed the tax returns knowingly, both of them could have criminal liability. So I don’t think it’s a small thing that can just be written off as: “Oh well, it’s too bad that she made this mistake.’” More

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      in US Politics

      Six key findings from the New York Times' Trump taxes bombshell

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      Donald Trump

      The president pays little, faces hefty audit costs as well as loans coming due soon, and Ivanka is not in the clear
      Report: NYT publishes Trump tax returns

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      ‘Fake news’: Trump denies tax claims from New York Times – video

      The publication of Donald Trump’s tax records by the New York Times is one of the biggest bombshells to hit a 2020 election campaign already buffeted by a litany of scandals, a bitter fight over a supreme court nomination and a pandemic in which 7m Americans have been infected and more than 200,000 have died.
      The president’s taxes have long been the great white whale of political reporters in America as well as prosecutors keen to find evidence of wrongdoing. Democrats too were eager to seize on them as a potentially game-changing stick with which to beat the Trump campaign.
      The Times, with its shock report published on Sunday evening, appears to have won the race. Its publication of details from the documents could send shock waves through the campaign as the key first debate between Trump and challenger Joe Biden looms, in Ohio on Tuesday night.
      Here are its key findings:
      Trump pays little tax
      The Times reported that Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years the newspaper looked at. In 2017, after he became president, his tax bill was only $750. This is despite Trump often railing against taxes in America and ushering through a series of tax cuts that critics say mostly helps the rich and big business.
      The Times said of Trump’s immediate predecessors: “Barack Obama and George W Bush each regularly paid more than $100,000 a year.”
      A long audit – with potentially hefty costs
      Trump is involved in a decade-long audit with the Internal Revenue Service over a $72.9m tax refund he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. A ruling against him could cost him more than $100m, the Times reported.
      It added: “In 2011, the IRS began an audit reviewing the legitimacy of the refund. Almost a decade later, the case remains unresolved, for unknown reasons, and could ultimately end up in federal court, where it could become a matter of public record.”
      Ivanka helps reduce Trump’s tax burden
      The president’s oldest daughter, while working as an employee of the Trump Organization, appears to have received “consulting fees” that helped reduce the family’s tax bill, the Times said. Such a revelation might further tarnish the reputation of Ivanka, a senior White House adviser married to another, Jared Kushner, who often tries to distance herself from some of the biggest scandals of her father’s administration. She is widely believed to harbor political ambitions of her own after Trump leaves office.
      The Times reported: “Trump’s private records show that his company once paid $747,622 in fees to an unnamed consultant for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia. Ivanka Trump’s public disclosure forms – which she filed when joining the White House staff in 2017 – show that she had received an identical amount through a consulting company she co-owned.”
      Trump businesses lose money
      The Times was brutal in its assessment of Trump’s businesses, about which he often boasts and on the back of which he sought to promote a carefully curated image as a master businessman. “Trump’s core enterprises – from his constellation of golf courses to his conservative-magnet hotel in Washington – report losing millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars year after year,” the newspaper said.
      It detailed how since 2000, Trump has reported losing more than $315m at his golf courses, with much of that coming from Trump National Doral in Florida. His Washington hotel, which opened in 2016 and has been the subject of much speculation regarding federal ethics laws, has lost more than $55m.
      Trump has a big bill to pay
      The newspaper also reported that Trump is facing a major financial bill, as within the next four years, hundreds of millions of dollars in loans will come due. The paper said Trump is personally responsible for many of those obligations.
      The paper reported: “In the 1990s, Mr Trump nearly ruined himself by personally guaranteeing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, and he has since said that he regretted doing so. But he has taken the same step again, his tax records show. He appears to be responsible for loans totaling $421m, most of which is coming due within four years.”
      In a blunt summary of the problem, the Times speculated: “Should he win re-election, his lenders could be placed in the unprecedented position of weighing whether to foreclose on a sitting president.”
      Trump businesses profit from his presidency
      The issue of whether Trump’s businesses benefit from his position in the White House has been one of the long-running themes of reporting on the Trump presidency. The global nature of the Trump Organization and its portfolio of hotels, resorts and other interests has left Trump open to speculation that lobbyists, business leaders and foreign powers could spend money in them to try and peddle influence in the US.
      The Times report on his tax returns is clear that Trump’s businesses have indeed benefited from his political career.
      “Since he became a leading presidential candidate, he has received large amounts of money from lobbyists, politicians and foreign officials who pay to stay at his properties or join his clubs,” the newspaper reported, before detailing monies paid at his Mar-a-Largo resort in Florida, his Washington hotel and other locations.

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      Donald Trump

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      US politics

      US taxation

      US elections 2020

      Ivanka Trump

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