Ivanka Trump slams lawsuit as example of ‘vindictiveness & waste of taxpayer dollars’

Ivanka Trump, the president’s oldest daughter and senior adviser, confirmed Thursday that she was deposed as part of a Washington, D.C., investigation into the use of inauguration funds, decrying the probe as a “waste of taxpayer dollars.”

“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,” Trump said in a statement, which she posted to social media. “I shared with them an email from 4 years ago where I sent instructions to the hotel to charge ‘a fair market rate.'”

“This ‘inquiry’ is another politically motivated demonstration of vindictiveness & waste of taxpayer dollars,” Trump added.

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— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) December 3, 2020

The president’s daughter included a screenshot of a single email from Dec. 14, 2016, in which she wrote to Michael Damelincourt, the managing director at Trump International Hotel in Washington, to “call and negotiate. It should be a fair market rate.”

Trump spoke to investigators as part of a lawsuit alleging the misuse of inauguration funds. The D.C. attorney general in January sued the Trump Organization and the Presidential Inauguration Committee, accusing the groups of misusing more than $1 million raised by the committee by “grossly overpaying” to use event space at the Trump hotel in D.C. for the 2017 inauguration.

The tweet from the president’s daughter marked a rare comment on legal matters from the first family, which, outside of President Trump, has largely refrained from commenting on investigations into their properties or finances.

Ivanka Trump offered a similarly rare rebuke in November of a report that Trump family tax write-offs were under investigation in New York. 

The president has reportedly discussed preemptively pardoning Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. before leaving office to guard against potential legal jeopardy once the Biden administration takes over. But a federal pardon would not protect against possible state charges.