By Alexandra Ulmer
(Reuters) – Ivanka Trump “checked out” on election issues in the aftermath of the 2020 election, her father and former President Donald Trump said on Friday after the release of testimony in which she said did not believe his claims of election fraud.
A congressional panel probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol on Thursday aired recorded testimony in which Ivanka Trump said she did not believe his false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him.
In a post on the social media platform Truth Social on Friday, Trump sought to downplay his daughter’s involvement in his efforts to contest the election. Ivanka Trump was one of her father’s most trusted allies during his four years in the White House.
“Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results. She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as Attorney General (he sucked!),” Trump said.
Trump was referring to Ivanka’s video deposition given in April that she believed then-Attorney General William Barr’s assessment that there was no significant evidence of fraud during the election.
“I respect Attorney General (William) Barr. So I accepted what he was saying,” Ivanka Trump told congressional investigators.
Reuters was not able to locate a spokesperson for Ivanka Trump. There was no immediate response to a request for comment via private message to her Instagram account.
The Jan. 6, 2021, riot followed shortly after Trump gave an incendiary speech to thousands of supporters outside the White House, repeating his false claims of a stolen 2020 election and urging them to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell.”
(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer; editing by Andy Sullivan and Cynthia Osterman)
