“Sorry Princess Nepotism”: Experts trash Ivanka’s bid to duck testimony due to “hardship”

An appeals court on Thursday denied Ivanka Trump’s request to postpone her upcoming testimony in her father’s civil fraud trial in New York, shortly after she claimed she would experience “undue hardship” if forced to appear in court during a school week, CNN reports. “Ms. Trump, who resides in Florida with her three minor children, will suffer undue hardship if a stay is denied and she is required to testify at trial in New York in the middle of a school week, in a case she has already been dismissed from, before her appeal is heard,” her lawyer argued, in part, in a Thursday appeal.

Ivanka Trump’s aim in filing the appeal was to block New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s previous order for her to testify until an appeal could be heard by a state appellate court. The Thursday filing also requested that the court pause the entire fraud trial against former President Donald Trump, two of his adult sons and his company until her appeal could be heard. But the stay motion was quickly denied in a Thursday night filing. 

Legal experts mocked Ivanka Trump online over her argument for appeal. “Don’t look now, but someone’s privilege is showing,” MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Sorry Princess Nepotism – you’re not above the law,” Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer, added. “Not a good look for Ivanka trying to get out of testifying in fraud trial [because] it was ‘middle of school week,'” former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman tweeted. “She lost motion and was roundly mocked. A horrendous week for the family/Trump brand even aside from trial, which is moving like a freight train tow a disastrous verdict.”