Ex-prosecutor: Trump kids may learn a lesson on perjury “the hard way” on the witness stand

The stakes are high for former President Donald Trump and three of his adult children as Eric, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. are slated to take the stand in his civil fraud trial in New York this week. 

One of the most anticipated testimonies of the week is that of Ivanka Trump, whom an appeals court ruled should be dropped as a defendant in the case earlier this year over concerns about the statute of limitations. Brothers Eric and Don Jr., while testifying as witnesses, are still defendants in the suit and, along with their father and other Trump Organization executives, were found liable of committing fraud in exaggerating property values on financial statements by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron late last month ahead of the trial’s start. 

Former Trump White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews predicted that Ivanka Trump may seek to distance herself from her family’s business dealings on the stand.

“They are a close-knit family and while they have their issues, I don’t know that she is going to want to put them in a bad situation and, obviously, because then it will reflect back on her and will look poorly on her and her father,” Matthews told MSNBC host Alex Witt on Sunday. “So I think that she is going to be careful with her words and try to protect her family. But, at the end of the day, something I knew very well from working with Jared [Kushner] and Ivanka in the White House was that they were always concerned with their own reputations first.

“We saw this in news stories all the time where, if Trump would enact a policy or tweet something vile out, then in the reporting it would always be, ‘Oh, Jared and Ivanka disagreed though or they tried to push back,'” she added. “So, they were always trying to make themselves look good in the media and I think that she is going to be very concerned with how she is coming across with her testimony and be very guarded. So that’s going probably be a bigger factor than trying to protect her family.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance warned that Trump’s kids will have to decide “do they want to tell the truth or do they want to stay in daddy’s good graces since the consequences of committing perjury are likely to be a prosecution.”

“It’s very clear that New York’s attorney general means business,” she said in an appearance on MSNBC.

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner warned that the Trump children’s testimonies will carry a risk if they stray from the truth.

“You know, more than 50 years ago, the Supreme Court famously said that cross-examination is the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of the truth,” Kirschner told MSNBC. “And I think Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and eventually Donald Trump himself are going to learn that lesson the hard way.”

The former president has been sanctioned twice during the trial. He first earned a $5,000 fine earlier this month for failing to remove a cross-posted social media post about a court clerk that led Engoron to impose a partial gag order on all parties barring them from speaking about court personnel. The second $10,000 sanction came last week after Engoron found Donald Trump not credible when testifying that he was not referring to the clerk while complaining about “the partisan” that sat alongside the judge to reporters outside the courtroom.

“So, you know, they can try to deflect,” Kirschner continued after emphasizing that they will be asked about the very business practices that Engoron has already ruled against. “They can try to feign lost memory. They can deceive. But if they do so and if they lie about something that is material to an issue in dispute that’s the magic language for the charge of perjury, then they could be looking at a perjury charge.

“Will New York Attorney General Tish James choose to go that way if she finds false testimony? We don’t know, but as I said, this is really perilous terrain for the Trumps,” he concluded.

---

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

---

Pleading the Fifth while on the stand could also make matters worse for the family, former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade said during a Sunday morning MSNBC appearance, noting that using the constitutional amendment pertaining to self-incrimination is applied differently in a civil trial than in a criminal trial. 

“It’s not that they’re going to be incriminated here, it’s that anything they say under oath could be used against them in some subsequent criminal case,” she told host Charles Coleman Jr. “If they believe they have exposure, they can invoke it. But what’s different about a civil case from a criminal case is that in this case, Judge Engoron could use that invocation to draw an adverse inference against the witness.

“So if they refused to answer a question, he can assume the worst about what the answer would have been,” McQuade continued. “I think that’s what I’ll be looking for most as these witnesses testify this week.”

Ivanka Trump is set to testify on Friday, Nov. 3 with Donald Jr. and Eric Trump’s testimonies preceding on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, the Associated Press reports. The former president will take to the stand again — following the brief appearance that led to his latest violation of Engoron’s partial gag order and subsequent sanction — on Nov. 6.

Donald Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the lawsuit and fervently defended the valuations of his properties.