Ivanka Trump’s Former Business Partner Sued For Fraud

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has sued a friend and former business partner of White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump for allegedly trying to defraud the U.S. government out of more than $60 million in taxes, Politico reports.

The suit was brought in the Southern District of New York by lawyers in the Justice Department’s tax division. Ivanka’s friend, New York businessman Moshe Lax, his late father, Chaim Lax, and his sister, Zlaty Schwartz, engaged in a “series of complex sham transactions,” designed to deprive the state of $60 million in taxes total, according to the Justice Department’s tax division.

The suit does not explicitly mention the president’s daughter, and White House adviser Ivanka Trump, but Ivanka’s business, Madison Avenue Diamonds, figures prominently in the case. According to Politico, Ivanka helped run Madison Avenue Diamonds under the name Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, and Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry is mentioned in one of the 10 tax avoidance schemes brought up in the case.

“One of the 10 schemes outlined in the complaint is Lax’s alleged transfer of a roughly $21 million interest in Madison Avenue Diamonds from his father’s estate to a holding company for nothing in return.”

The Department of Justice argues that Ivanka Trump’s friend, Moshe Lax, transferred a portion of equity in Ivanka’s company between 2008 and 2012. During that time period, according to the government, Ivanka was involved with the business.

“The issues in this case have nothing to do with Ivanka or the Ivanka Trump brand. These licensing arrangements were terminated by the Ivanka Trump brand in 2016, prior to Ivanka entering government service,” a representative for Trump’s brand said in a statement supplied to Politico.

Lax has been a close friend of the Trumps for years, Politico noted, and apart from being Ivanka Trump’s first business partner, he introduced Ivanka to Jared Kushner, her husband. The president’s daughter praised the businessman in her memoir. Lax was also seen at Donald Trump’s inauguration festivities.

The Democrats are trying to make corruption in the Trump family a midterm campaign issue, Politico noted, so Ivanka Trump’s personal and business relationships with controversial businessmen may “further the perception that the Trump family and their closest associates operate in a corrupt milieu.”

This political strategy may pay off in November, at least according to polls. While the Democrats may have not come up with a coherent midterm message yet, a July poll suggested that 54 percent of voters across 48 Republican-controlled districts consider the GOP to be more corrupt than the DNC, according to Vox.