President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump is in a legal fight with a Democratic Attorney General.
Amid the fallout following the 2020 election, the senior White House adviser appeared before the Washington D.C. Attorney General’s office, who say they’re investigating misused donor funds linked to the Trump 2017 inauguration.
The young First Daughter blasted the deposition.
A “waste of taxpayer dollars,” she said, after allegedly spending more than five hours being grilled.
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) December 3, 2020
“This week I spent 5+ hours in a deposition with the Democrat D.C. AG’s office where they questioned the rates charged by the Trump Hotel at the inauguration,” she wrote on Twitter. “I shared with them an email from 4 years ago where I sent instructions to the hotel to charge “a fair market rate” (see below) which the hotel then did. This ‘inquiry’ is another politically motivated demonstration of vindictiveness & waste of taxpayer dollars.”
In other words, she’s doubling down that the administration did no wrongdoing.
The Washington, D.C., attorney general’s office has filed a lawsuit alleging the committee made more than $1 million in improper payments to the president’s Washington, D.C., hotel during the week of the inauguration in 2017.
Specifically, the District of Columbia’s attorney general, Karl Racine, alleges that Trump’s inaugural committee spent more than $1 million to book a ballroom at the Trump International Hotel as part of a scheme to “grossly overpay” for party space and enrich the president’s own family in the process.
Her deposition on Tuesday was first reported by CNN.
As part of the suit, the attorneys have subpoenaed records from Ivanka Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Thomas Barrack Jr., a close friend of the president who chaired the inaugural committee, and others. Barrack was deposed last month.
Racine has accused the committee of misusing nonprofit funds and coordinating with the hotel’s management and members of the Trump family to arrange the events.
“District law requires nonprofits to use their funds for their stated public purpose, not to benefit private individuals or companies,” Racine has said. “In this case, we are seeking to recover the nonprofit funds that were improperly funneled directly to the Trump family business.”
The committee raised an unprecedented $107 million to host events celebrating Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, but its spending has drawn continued scrutiny from Democratic leaders.
In a statement, Alan Garten with the Trump Organization said that “Ms. Trump’s only involvement was connecting the parties and instructing the hotel to charge a ‘fair market rate,’ which the hotel did.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article