Ivanka Trump ‘Pained’ for Her Father and Country After Manhattan DA Indictment

Ivanka Trump, former President Donald Trump’s daughter, expressed her pain on Friday after learning about the indictment and the subsequent prosecution of her father by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.

On her Instagram story, Ivanka Trump said, “I love my father, and I love my country. Today, I am pained for both. I appreciate the voices across the political spectrum expressing support and concern.”

The indictment against the former president is still sealed, but it comes after Bragg’s office had been investigating Trump for his alleged involvement in a payment of $130,000 in 2016 to Stormy Daniels, an adult entertainment actress, by his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen. The payment was allegedly made to prevent Daniels from going public with her claim of an affair with Trump before the 2016 election. Trump denies the allegations.

Bragg’s office may argue that the payment was wrongly classified as a business expense by the Trump Organization, in violation of Section 175 of New York law, which classifies the falsification of business records as a Class E felony. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) had already declined to prosecute the payment to Daniels as an election law violation.

This indictment comes as Trump has already begun campaigning for the presidency in 2024 and leads in many Republican presidential primary polls. Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, advised Trump during his first presidential term but have reportedly ruled out any involvement in his father’s political career moving forward.

Although Ivanka Trump did not elaborate further on the messages of support and concern she had received from across the political spectrum, many Republican politicians, including several known and potential 2024 presidential primary opponents, criticized Bragg’s efforts to prosecute Trump. Even Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, a self-described liberal Democrat, criticized the case against Trump, calling it “the worst case of prosecutorial abuse I have ever seen.”

A recent poll by Quinnipiac University revealed that 62% of Americans felt Bragg’s case against Trump is mainly motivated by politics, while 32% said it is mainly motivated by law. It also discovered that 93% of Republicans, 70% of Independents, and 29% of Democrats view Bragg’s case to be primarily political in nature.

Bragg’s office