This story is sliding under the radar today because all eyeballs are focused on the criminal courts building in Manhattan today as the 45th president of the United States struggles to stay awake as a jury of his peers is being selected to decide his culpability in falsifying business records and election interference. I hope that Donald Trump can walk and get himself back to Trump Tower under his own recognizance. Although who knows? They may have to carry him, or perhaps give him smelling salts or some other kind of stimulant. And Trump has to come back tomorrow, so if this is his first day, it does not bode well for his stamina for the next six to either weeks, to say the very least. Wall Street Journal:
As Donald Trump sits for the first day of his Manhattan hush-money trial, he still faces a nagging financial headache at the courthouse down the street over a $454 million civil-fraud judgment handed down to him.
The former president has until Monday to show the financial bona fides of the $175 million bond he obtained to cover the judgment while he appeals. The New York attorney general’s office, which won the judgment after suing him for a yearslong scheme to inflate his wealth for financial gain, called the bond into question earlier this month.
Knight Specialty Insurance, the little-known insurer that issued Trump the bond, isn’t on a list of federally approved sureties. The attorney general’s office has demanded Trump’s lawyers or Knight prove the suretor’s qualifications, including detailing how it is financially solvent and specifying what Trump assets are backing the bond.
New York Justice Arthur Engoron, who handed down the judgment earlier this year, has scheduled an April 22 hearing on the matter. Some lawyers who handle similar cases said Engoron could find that the bond by Knight, which isn’t licensed in New York, doesn’t comply with the law.
“The idea that Trump’s engaging in financial chicanery after being found liable for financial chicanery is something Justice Engoron will have little patience for,” said lawyer Adam Pollock, who previously worked at the attorney general’s office.
If anybody else was involved in this lawsuit, that would be the ultimate irony. But when the name on the defendant line is “Trump” then all of this makes complete sense and is totally on brand.
Simply, Knight Surety, which is not registered to issue appeal bonds in the State of New York, had not obtained a Certificate Of Qualification from the state’s Department of Financial Services. That is a requirement in order to prove that the company is financially sound and qualified to issue the bond that it proposed to issue.
The bottom line here appears to be that the simplest thing for Trump to have done was use a company licensed to issue appeal bonds in New York. The fact that he did not do so indicates that nobody who was licensed wanted to give him the bond. And Knight may in fact be capable of issuing the bond but they have not proven so yet and today is the deadline.
Lawyers uninvolved in the case pointed to other red flags with the bond. There is an established process through which a litigant can ask the court for an exception to use an unlicensed company, but there is no indication Trump did so, said Neil Pedersen, who runs a surety bond agency. “You show what the collateral is and how it’s held, then provide quarterly updates on the collateral account,” said Pedersen. “The court has to choose to accept it or not.”
Under New York law, a company can’t make a bond to a single borrower that is more than 10% of its surplus. Knight has $138 million in surplus, far less than legally required and less than the total Trump bond, according to a financial statement it provided to the court. In an earlier filing, Knight included financial information for its parent company, Knight Insurance, which has roughly a billion in surplus. The Trump bond is still above the 10% threshold.
If Trump doesn’t meet the Monday deadline to provide detailed information about the bond, then the attorney general could begin enforcing the fraud judgment.
Letitia James could begin to seize properties. Or, Don Hankey who owns Knight Surety could take care of this matter and make sure that the bond can be met, even if that involves moving funds from one part of his financial empire to the other. Or, maybe Hankey will decide that this is all too much trouble. He did mention that Knight “wasn’t charging enough” for this bond to Trump because they thought it would be simple and straightforward and so far it has been anything but that.
So let’s see what happens. Either way, it will be most instructive. Trump is distracted, to put it mildly, by the criminal trial that just began. He was muddling his speech in rallies over the weekend and today he’s falling asleep in court. But when he hears that Letitia James (or “Jones” as he’s been calling her lately) could be coming after Trump Tower, that might wake him up.
After all, Trump Tower is where he is resting his weary head during the trial, if he suddenly didn’t own or control it anymore, that would come as something of a shock.
Karma is catching up and she’s moving fast.
if I understand it correctly, the whole thing is on hold till the 22nd. as of now no bond has been posted.
“The idea that Trump’s engaging in financial chicanery after being found liable for financial chicanery is something”
to be completely expected, and as you say,”completely on brand”.
He has spent his whole life crossing legal boundaries, he doesn’t know where the lines are any more.
But he’s finding out now in quite clear and certain fashion.
Can he go.Tom jail or forced to drop the appeal?