Interesting how the 11th hour save of Donald Trump by a couple of GOP billionaires seemed all wrapped up and neatly tied with a bow. Trump’s original deadline to file the bond was April 4, and he got the paperwork in with time to spare — the only problem was that the paperwork was defective, as you read here earlier today.

So, defective paperwork must be cured and the court clerk specified exactly what was needed to do so. One of the defects specified was the “lack of a financial statement.” Everyone’s kneejerk reaction was to assume that they meant Trump’s financial statement. And certainly that would be a joy to read, if for no other reason than to see if he still values Truth Social at $6 billon and Mar-a-Lago at $2.5 billion. But Lisa Rubin, who analyzes these things for a living, said wait just a minute. Maybe there’s more than one way to look at the set of directions the court issued today.

Now here’s something else that just occurred to me: how long does Trump or Hankey or anybody involved in this issue have to get these corrections in? Because the bond was due April 4. The bond paperwork was submitted prior to that date but since that paperwork is defective, does that somehow affect whether the bond was filed timely or not? I don’t know and like everything else Trumpian, there are always these issues of first impression. Everything the man does is atypical, unprecedented, never before seen, all of those descriptors. Now it turns out that his fabled 11th hour bond salvation falls into that category as well.

Some interesting questions raised here as well. Was Hankey trying to “pull a fast one?” That has a lot of angles to it.

  1. Did Hankey’s company file paperwork knowing it was defective? That I doubt simply because all that would happen is that the paperwork would get bounced. And then that puts you in a time crunch situation, curing the defects and refiling within a certain time period;
  2. Or, does pulling a fast one mean that they figured they’d get Trump off the hook for $175M and they’d show the court that they actually had it later on. And in truth, Don Hankey is estimated as being worth $7 billion so he likely has $175 million or his surety company does;
  3. Or, does pulling a fast one mean that Hankey’s company temporarily bought Trump a few days only and now they’ve got to make good on all of this or pull out?
  4. And if they pull out, then Trump is SOL and then Letitia James will start seizing assets.

I do agree that Barbara Jones likely has all the answers and I certainly hope and pray she’s on the right side of the law. So far there has been no reason to believe that she’s not.

Let’s see what happens tomorrow. This is the first thing that somebody who is familiar with the rules of court for the Manhattan Supreme Court 1st Judicial District (and I assure you that’s not me) should ascertain: is whether Trump gets an additional number of days to cure the defective paperwork and if so, how many? Or, can Letitia James start seizing properties?

Judge Juan Merchan isn’t allowing Trump to delay one nano second in his court case and at least we can be grateful for that.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. A bond not posted according to legal requirements is a bond not posted at all.

    A bond not posted means asset seizures can start.

    When is the ten day deadline up?

    19

  2. In some of the pundit chatter Wed. I heard it mentioned that Knight doesn’t normally get into matters like posting Surety Bonds, so since the process and especially for this much is way outside their wheelhouse it’s maybe not surprising that they screwed up the paperwork. This was by all appearances a rich Trump lover stepping up at the last minute to bail his ass out of trouble. Even assuming that no one would check the paperwork all that closely and there’d be time to get it all done properly eventually. One does have to remember Hankey is a guy with a history of “shoot first, ask questions later.” And pulling fast ones. For example, he/his company tried to pull a fast one by repossessing autos of troops serving in combat zones, figuring they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. What he did was against the law (and he damn well knew it) and he DID get called on it and hand to settle to the tune of (if memory serves) $700k. Given the disruption it caused to so many of our troops he got off way too easy but when a person is rich they usually get away with being assholes.

    As I said yesterday there’s probably time for Knight to hire NY counsel that knows WTF it’s doing (which will cost a pretty penny – GOOD!) to get things right but you do pose an interesting question that could mean Trump is screwed after all – if it’s not all done by the book (the law book) the financial monitors (there’s a second one besides Jones now) might call bullshit and no bond will be posted after all. I’d imagine AG James has notified those monitors she’ll be checking things quite closely!

    This could turn out to be a BFD and in a very bad way for Trump. Still, he’s Trump and I fear as is so often the case he’ll weasel out of trouble yet again.

    14

    • I too was listening to pundits yesterday. It’s seems that it’s not unusual for paperwork to be corrected. Assuming Hankey’s company hasn’t done something like this before there’s really no there there.

      3

  5. My money is on the bond agent effing up.
    Remember, his company mainly gives high-interest subprime auto loans to folks with sh*tty credit (cough, cough, Trump) and probably doesn’t know all the hoops NY makes you jump through.

    3

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