Quel surprise, Donald Trump isn’t rolling in cash like he said he was. Why, just recently he was boasting that he had $400 million in cash — cash, mind you, liquid assets, money in the bank. Not to be confused with all his other real estate properties, booming businesses (why we read just a few days ago about a $4 BILLION windfall from Truth Social. Shame it’s all a fantasy on paper because he certainly could use the money.) So let’s do some simple arithmetic here: Trump had a $354 million fine levied as judgment in the Trump Organization civil trial. And he also had $98.6 million in pre-judgment interest applied to that, so we’re looking at $452 million, give or talk half a mil.
So, if he’s got $400 million on hand and he owes $452, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal just to pay, right? When you bat in that league it’s no big deal to come up with an extra $50 million, he could just sell a few small assets, artworks, cars, what have you. So is that what he plans to do?
Apparently not. How do we know that? Because Wednesday night his lawyers filed a screaming meemee request for a 30-day 30-day extension to the court.
In a letter to Engoron, lawyer Clifford Robert slammed what he described as James’s “unseemly rush to memorialize a ‘judgment. Defendants request the Court stay enforcement of that Judgment for thirty (30) days,” Robert wrote.
There’s no “unseemly rush.” Engoron did things by the book. And Robert knows this.
The request for delay is likely so Trump can try either to raise enough capital to pay the fine, or to find a company willing to help him post a bond. Trump reportedly holds only about $600 million in liquid assets, not nearly enough to pay the millions he owes in this and other legal penalties.
That’s the obvious take. Trump needs to raise the money because he doesn’t have it. I don’t know where this $600 million figure comes from. I got the $400 million from Trump’s niece, Mary, and she published that number in one of her newsletters earlier this week. But let’s assume he does have $600 million in liquid assets, then he could take care of this fine, logically. And he’s not, which raises the question of what he really has in the bank.
Trump owes writer E. Jean Carroll $88.3 million for sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s and then defaming her twice when denying it. He also owes thousands of dollars in fines that he racked up during his recent trials for attacking courtroom staff, and $400,000 to The New York Times.
Unfortunately for Trump, the longer he delays paying the civil fraud fine, the higher it gets. With the statutory annual interest rate set at nine percent, that shakes out to an increase of $87,502 per day. According to a penalty calculator created by Associated Press journalist Mike Sislak, as of Thursday, Trump owes the state of New York a grand total of $454,069,281.
This is a lot of money and it’s not going to get better, it’s only going to add up and get worse. And so what happens now? The obvious, which is that Trump begins liquidating properties. And Letitia James is just fine with that. She’s only too happy to seize his assets, she made that clear.
So what is he going to sell? Trump Tower is a logical choice. He doesn’t spend time there and he can’t do business in New York for three years, anyhow. But, and this is a bigggg but, Melania spends a lot of time there. Or used to. She and her parents spent time there. Maybe with her mother gone and Barron heading off to college in the fall things will be different.
And let’s put it this way: the luxury of choice may not be Trump’s for too much longer.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump could be at risk of losing some of his prized properties if he can’t pay his staggering New York civil fraud penalty. With interest, he owes the state nearly $454 million — and the amount is going up $87,502 each day until he pays.
New York Attorney General Letitia James told ABC News on Tuesday that she will seek to seize some of the former president’s assets if he’s unable to cover the bill from Judge Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 16 ruling. […]
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James, a Democrat, said in an interview with ABC reporter Aaron Katersky. […]
Trump claimed last year that he has about $400 million in cash — reserves that would get eaten up by his court penalties. The rest of his net worth, which he says is several billion dollars, is tied up in golf courses, skyscrapers and other properties, along with investments and other holdings.
But don’t expect James to try to grab the keys to Trump Tower or Mar-a-Lago immediately. Trump’s promised appeal is likely to halt collection of his penalty while the process plays out.
Could the state really seize Trump’s assets
Yes. If Trump isn’t able to pay, the state “could levy and sell his assets, lien his real property, and garnish anyone who owes him money,” Syracuse University Law Professor Gregory Germain said.
Seizing assets is a common legal tactic when a defendant can’t access enough cash to pay a civil penalty. In a famous example, O.J. Simpson’s Heisman Trophy was seized and sold at auction in 1999 to cover part of a $33.5 million wrongful death judgment against him.
Very simply, under New York law, Trump will receive an automatic stay if he puts up money, assets or an appeal bond covering the amount he owes. A stay is a legal mechanism halting enforcement of a court decision while the appeals process plays out. So he can keep James from seizing his assets. But the bond is the key — he has to be able to pay what he owes or pay for a bond covering the amount that he owes.
“Even if we choose to appeal this – which we will – we have to post the bond, which is the full amount and some, and we will be prepared to do that,” Trump lawyer Alina Habba told Fox News on Monday.
And certainly we would never doubt Attorney Habba’s word. Let’s see what Trump does. Right now he’s selling sneakers and hoping that he can find a loophole in the GoFundMe rules but even if that’s the case, here’s nowhere near even earning $1 million from either of those endeavors so far, let along 454 times that.
A lot of people are stating the obvious, which is that if he had it, he’d pay it, and at the very least get out from under the burden of accruing interest. I don’t think you need to be a financial genius to figure out that that’s the logical call. If he doesn’t pay soon, it’s because he doesn’t have it and he can’t get it. And that’s when things will begin to get very interesting.
And don’t forget, Super Tuesday the beginning of March, the Stormy Daniels Manhattan D.A. case the end of March. Those are two substantial plotlines in this tragi/comedy reality TV show that we all live in.
The simple answer is he’s unable to pay. I wonder how the attorneys in his other cases feel about their billable hours as the cases drag on. I believe another judge ruled he can be sued by victims of January 6th. If he wasn’t such a malignant narcissist, he’d probably be headed to the top floor of trump tower for a one way flight to the street below. As Edward Arlington wrote in his poem Richard Corey, a poem made famous by Paul Simon’s song about a rich man that looked like he had everything ‘a man could want’…’ Richard Corey went home last night and put a bullet through his head.’ Stay tuned…hell has been unleashed on Trump.
If I was Judge Engeron, I’d actually grant a SMALL stay (7 or perhaps 14 days), along with some language expressing sympathy with the Defendant’s apparent financial situation.
Three reasons:
1. This will establish him as the reasonable guy, should the case get to appeal.
2. Mr Trump might not take kindly to the implication that he can’t easily pay the money. He might then take another shot at his foot.
and last but by no means least;
3. This will get some separation between paying the bond in this case and in the Carroll defamation case. The measures Trump takes to pay THAT bond could give the court (and AG James) valuable insights into Mr Trump’s real financial position.
Guess I was wrong. Salon has an article out indicating Judge Engeron immediately denied the request.
Considering this case was supposed to be ONLY about how much Trump was going to have to pay (his guilt had already been established), Trump and his lawyers were simply fighting to make sure the penalty was as little as possible. He was ALWAYS going to have to pay.
But, that’s the main point. He and his lawyers should’ve been spending part of their time trying to figure out how Trump would pay *IF* the judgment was close to the maximum allowed.
Usually in capital cases, there’s about a month between the verdict and the sentencing phase. If the defendant’s lawyer is doing a good job (or even a mediocre job), he’s going to use that time to find as many character witnesses he can to ensure the sentence is as lenient as possible (in a death penalty case, it’s pretty much just changing minds to keep death off the table and turning a “life without parole” into “life with the possibility of parole after ____). The same rule largely applies here: Trump’s people should’ve been preparing to set up how Trump would pay the inevitable penalty.
Practically speaking Engoron has already done what you suggested, as did judge Kaplan after the Carroll verdict. A ruling/verdict can be signed by a judge but technically it’s not “official” until their clerk files it. By holding off having his clerk walk the paperwork to the proper office, the Chief/County clerk (or whatever the position is called up there) he’s given Trump those days you speak of. Given the extra time he took crafting his ruling even Trump’s lawyers knew it was almost certainly going to be north of 300 million so if they and Trump weren’t hard at work for weeks getting ready to post bond that’s on THEM. Trump has gotten the gift of time. At the appellate level the judges will know that. As for public perception, Engoron could have given Trump several months to come up with the cash or bond and Trump STILL would have complained about not getting enough time.
The legal pundits are saying the price for filing an appeal of Engoron’s judgment is either putting up the full amount in cash in an escrow account, or posting a bond for 120% of the that amount. Ergo, he’s screwed all six ways to Sunday. Mary may have some insights on how this will affect her uncle. I’m guessing he’s going to go full monty bonkers.
The Go Fund Me thing was explained on the news yesterday. The don’t allow funds for criminal charges or their legal defense. This is a civil case.
I find it scandalous that the news business hasn’t highlighted the connection between GoFundMe and Trump. That explanation you refer to came from Jalen Drummond, GoFundMe’s Director of Public Affairs. Guess who he used to work for and where? Yep, during the Trump administration he worked in the WH Communications Office and moved up to become an assistant Press Secretary. When all that was done he talked up his time working for Trump on FB/social media and of course engaged in plenty of ass kissing of Trump and what he called Trump’s accomplishments – as though they were good. More interesting is that Maggie Habberman learned and reported that Drummond was in a WH meeting on Jan. 5, 2021. IOW he has a Jan. 6 connection! Given all that it’s not surprising that he’d help GoFundMe figure out a loophole/technicality to get around the rules.
The tragic part of all this is a lot of people have begun to question the legitimacy of GoFundMe and that will hurt people who need and are deserving of the platform’s assistance as some who might have thought it a worthy and honorable place to use to help others question where their donations might be going. The site has damaged its credibility. People, regular people will suffer as a result. However Trump, Drummond and others there don’t give a fuck about all that. ONLY Trump matters and if others are hurt along the way to protect that fat orange piece of shit then “fuck em” is their attitude.
But like I said, the folks in charge at news outlets don’t want their journalists pointing all this out. The don’t care who suffers either because they only care about their goddamned tax cuts and not getting regulated which means they can complete the process of being a handful of monopolies.
GFM took down a fundraiser for a cop that was simply administratively disciplined, not even fired. so their “criminal vs. civil” caveat is just weasel words.
“Weasel Words.” You are being polite. A lady. I however am NOT a gentleman so I’ll call it the bullshit it is. (I used to be a gentleman, at least most of the time but things change and in this case the open Trumpism of the GOP is the cause. I’m not welcome in my small midwestern hometown anymore. I wouldn’t go back if I could because I wouldn’t want to put the few people who’d be glad to see me on the spot and subject them to problems from MAGAs. Obama is correct in saying Trump’s the symptom of what was already there and only gave the ones we’ve come to know and hate permission to slither out from under the slimy rocks. So I decided fuck em. I’ll return their contempt and hatred. Using the king of launguage from my days as an athlete and later in the Marines. I can scorch some ears when I want to!
I am disappointed in the ‘Penalty Calculator’. I thought it would be like the National Debt clock.
https://www.usdebtclock.org/
Somebody should create a website that shows the interest accruing by the second for this outstanding debt. Sort of like the doomsday clock or national debt.
I think being “outed” as not rich (as well as a serial loser) is worse in his mind than going to prison. If he was locked up, they could spin it as him being a “political prisoner” whom Biden and the deep state locked up to allow Biden to win the election.