It’s always gratifying to make a prediction about something the day before the political commentators who make the big money do. Harry Litman of the Los Angeles Times did just that today. If you read my post yesterday about Melania pressuring Donald to defend himself in the E. Jean Carroll matter — if for no other reason than the potential for a tremendous verdict, which did in fact occur — then you know you don’t need to be Nostradamus to figure out the next obvious developments in Trump world.
Alina Habba bombed at the damages portion of the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial. Competent lawyers have been parsing through her technical errors and her horrifically ill advised strategy for days now. But while her client, Donald Trump, is licking his wounds and trying to figure out how to pay the judgment (appeal is not going to happen) there is yet another punch about to land. Judge Arthur Engoron is expected to render a judgment on the Trump Organization fraud trial on Wednesday. This is a one-two punch that could be decisive. Trump world is about to take a seismic financial hit.
There’s another interesting development. A fake news tweet is circulating around Twitter, wherein Trump muses about dumping Habba. Here’s what that looks like. Again, THIS IS FAKE. I share it here for the purposes of discussing the overall topic of Trump dumping Habba.
Alina is going to fight back from … under the bus. https://t.co/6lHMjiDrB1 pic.twitter.com/I3ugV3nYsJ
— Heidi 🟧 (@HeidiOCanada) January 28, 2024
Point being, a yuge judgment was just rendered on Friday. Three business days later, Wednesday, another yuge judgment may also be rendered. There has to be some kind of a reckoning. Habba already is covered in mud and Wednesday could be a legal shitstorm of Biblical proportions. Letitia James asked for $370 million and she may well get it. If she does, then that would mean Trump had judgments levied totaling $453.3 million, all in one week. All Trump needs are a few more judgments and he’ll be up there with Fox News in the excruciating judgments department.
What’s that you say? Isn’t Mar-a-Lago worth $1.5 billion, like Trump said? He can comfortably pay all the judgments and have money left to spare. Yes, indeed, if Mar-a-Lago is worth that kind of money. If it’s only worth $18 million, as the local county assessor appraised it at, then that’s a different kettle of fish.
This sketch was done in the courtroom last week during the E. Jean Carroll defamation damages trial. I would love to know what Trump and Habba were discussing.
So where is Trump going to come up with this kind of money? Selling off properties or spending the kids’ inheritances are two possibilities. Is it making sense to you why Melania is so pissed these days?
If the fraud trial fine comes in under $300 million, “he is going to be looking at, potentially, asset sales or something if he wants to either paid immediately or appeal. That is a huge number, and he doesn’t appear to have enough cash on hand to handle both if that civil fight comes in, where we think it will be in the three to four, five million range.”
Trump has a list of several properties that could end up on the chopping block, like his Bedminster club, his 10,000-square-foot condo in New York City, Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles, his club in Virginia, Trump Turnberry, Seven Springs and other properties. If he’s unwilling to sell off properties, he might have to begin dipping into the inheritance for his children.
When Rudy Giuliani filed for bankruptcy, there was the fear that Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman wouldn’t get their settlement from his defamation. But as Eric Snyder, the chairman of the bankruptcy practice at Wilk Auslander L.L.P, told Insider in December, because defamation is an “intentional tort” — meaning Giuliani broke civil laws on purpose — he can’t jettison the $148 million judgment through the bankruptcy process.
A key part of the New York fraud trial has been in proving Trump’s “intent” to defraud. So, it’s unclear whether he would have cover in that case or not. Like Giuliani, filing for bankruptcy would give Trump some time to reorganize his finances and get rid of other debt, and he would only be forced to pay for some of it during an appeal process, the report explained.
And of course we have the uber irony of all this: a man whose personal finances and legal affairs are a complete shambles, a man whose own wife doesn’t even want to be in the same car with him at a family funeral, is the frontrunner for the Republican party to lead our nation. This is the new normal.
We are constantly having to jump off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. Vonnegut
Where’s Kushner when you need him? Son-in-law could surely lend him a 1 Billion… half the money he got for selling U.S. secrets, to Saudi Arabia! So?
I’m an old fart and I recall long ago first hearing the old saw (as a warning to not waste time) that daddy’s girls marry daddy – as in someone just like their father. Ivanka did exactly that and Jared will no more give (he knows a loan would NEVER be paid back) one fucking dollar. He went to DC to “play government” with wannabe Princess Ivanka for one reason and one reason only – to get the kind of foreign connections AND enough knowledge and contacts in DC to trade for middle eastern money to bail him and his own family business out. Don’t forget the whole “House of Kushner” was collapsing due to Jared’s disastrous purchase of his “666” building in Manhattan. He did enough tap dancing to stave off the creditors and avoid bankrupcty himself.
Well, he got that taken care of and also a treasure trove of stuff to sell as in National Security information. And wound up with a cool couple billion so that even if he continues to suck at business like his father-in-law if he avoids the kind of truly boneheaded mistake he did with that one property he’ll be okay. Giving two or three hundred million to Trump, even as a loan would be a boneheaded mistake. “Jarvanka” had their fabulous NYC lives ruined by joining the administration and enough so that trying to recreate in in FL has been at best met with limited success. Plus it’s clear, as I wrote years ago referring to the first year of the Trump administration and seeing them retaining competent legal representation when the Mueller probe was ramping up that they’d throw Trump under the bus in a heartbeat.
Unlike him they had highly competent help covering their butts. It’s pretty clear they both decided to wash their hands of Trump. Ivanka is smarter than her brothers (not that high a bar to clear) and probably has known for some time that the whole house of cards would likely come crashing down and there’d be no inheritance to speak of anyway.
That’s why I think even if Trump’s ego can take the hit and asking Jarvanka to bail him out they’d say no.