Lara Trump
REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

KEY POINTS

  • Ivanka and Jared are not joining Donald Trump's 2024 campaign
  • Ivanka hired as counsel a lawyer who once represented Jeffrey Epstein's estate
  • Lara said she and Ivanka had bonded but did not expound on it

Lara Trump has belied claims that there was bad blood among the Trump siblings after Ivanka decided to forgo the representation of his brothers' lawyers and hire a separate counsel in the civil fraud case against them in New York.

Lara, the wife of Eric Trump, said that everything is good between the Trump children and that people are just trying to make a bigger deal on the matter, Daily Mail reported.

"It's not common to have to go through all this stuff that my husband and his siblings go through. They've had a series of different attorneys throughout this entire process, and it just so happened that Ivanka felt closer to one, gravitated towards that [one]," she said.

Reports came out on April 26 that Ivanka fired the attorneys representing her and her brothers, Donald Jr. and Eric, in the $250 million fraud case filed against them by Attorney General Letitia James.

Ivanka instead hired Troutman Pepper partner Bennet Moskowitz, who also once represented famed American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's estate, Forbes reported days later. On the other hand, her brothers continue to be represented by Robert & Robert's Clifford Robert and Michael Farina.

"She [may have] said, 'I'm going to have this person directly for me,' but [the attorneys] all work as a team. I think that got lost in the story," Lara said.

When asked if she and Ivanka – who now both live in Florida – had ever gotten together, she told the Mail yes, and then quickly diverted to another topic on how close her bond was with her father-in-law.

The couple and their children, who settled in Jupiter, Florida, after January 2021, said they get to see the former president as often as they want.

"It's actually great because when my kids say, 'Let's go to the beach,' what I hear is let's go to grandpa's because we go down to Mar-a-Lago," Lara said.

Speculations on the rift between the siblings have been circulating for quite some time after Us Weekly reported in November 2022 that Ivanka had a "rotten time" toward the end of her father's presidency and that she "couldn't step away fast enough."

"Even if her dad begged her to be involved in his campaign again, Ivanka would turn it down flat," the publication reported.

Ivanka, who served as an adviser at the Trump White House alongside her husband, had already announced last year that she was stepping away from politics and would not be involved in her father's 2024 campaign.

"I love my father very much. This time around, I'm choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family," she told Fox News Digital in November 2022.

Ever since leaving the White House, Ivanka and her family have been living in Miami, Florida.

Ivanka Trump
Reuters