Serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT), after a string of legal setbacks in court, has had several legal decisions go his way recently. One is that the US Supreme Court agreed to hear his appeal that as president, he had total immunity, and scheduled oral arguments for April 22. The opinion is likely to only come down at the end of the court’s term in June which means that SSAT gets the delay that he has sought. It is clear that SSAT’s strategy is to delay everything as much as possible until after the election, hoping that he wins which would allow him to order his attorney general to shut down all the federal investigations. The US supreme court also overturned the decision by the Colorado supreme court to disqualify him from the state ballot because he violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment (known as the Insurrection Clause) when he instigated the riot on January 6th, 2021.
But the civil cases that he has already lost must be giving him headaches because he has to cough up real money to appeal those. He is required to put up about 110% of the fines into an escrow account before his appeals can proceed.
The first defamation case he lost to Carroll required him to pay $5 million and he put up the $5.5 million himself. The second defamation case that he also lost was finalized on February 8th and the 30-day clock requires him to post a $92.46 million bond by tomorrow, Thursday, March 7th. He has asked the judge Lewis Kaplan to grant him a delay to find the money or to reduce the amount to $24.475 million, thus undermining his repeated boasts about his wealth and that he has plenty of cash on hand, about $400 million. It is interesting that since that second defamation verdict, and the threat by Carroll and her attorney Roberta Kaplan that they would slap him with another suit if he defamed Carroll again, he no longer accuses her of lying. They shut him up, no mean feat.
The judgment against SSAT delivered on Friday, February 16, 2024 by judge Arthur Engoron in the civil fraud lawsuit brought by New York state attorney general Letitia James was finalized on Friday, February 23rd and that began the 30 day clock for SSAT for pay the fine or come up with the money to post bond so that he can appeal. So March 23rd is that deadline. The numbers for that case are piling up.
Starting Friday, the interest on Trump’s penalty will increase to $111,984 per day, rather than the $87,502 per day he had owed before the verdict was made official. That’s because post-judgment interest is calculated on the total judgment — the underlying $355 million penalty, plus the nearly $100 million he racked up in pre-judgment interest.
Before the judgment was entered, Trump’s interest was charged only on the underlying penalty. In all, Trump and his co-defendants will be charged $114,554 per day in interest until they pay, according to The Associated Press’ calculations.
That includes $1,149 per day from each of Trump’s two eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., and $272 per day from former longtime Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg. Those amounts will continue to accrue even while they appeal. If Trump and his co-defendants succeed in getting the verdict overturned, they might not owe anything.
No mean feat indeed. Also a handy demonstration that however much anyone might have wanted to think that his previous behaviour was evidence that he simply can’t control himself, that he’s suffering from some form of cognitive decline or dementia that means he literally can’t help it -- that’s not true. He absolutely CAN help himself when he wants to, as the above shows. It’s just that until now he hasn’t seen any need to.
It’s easy to see through Alexander “Boris” Johnson’s buffoon act to the keenly intelligent but lazy arsehole underneath. Even now, however, while I don’t think Trump can or ever could hold a candle to Johnson intellectually, I’m starting to think he’s nowhere near as demented as he has been pretending to be. If he was, he’d crack on and defame Carroll again. It’s not a *good* act, but it appears it is an act. Colour me fooled, Donald, but I won’t get fooled again.
Additional question: what happens if he just… doesn’t pay? Do they send in the bailiffs?
An interesting thing about Trump posting bonds is that he can’t find anybody that will loan him money or act as a bondsman and post for him. He may not have the cash on hand but across his assets as a whole his net worth is surely enough. Nobody is interested in letting him use those buildings as collateral for a loan because they know they will have to go to court themselves when he loses. It’s just too likely that Trump would be rejected by the court, declare victory and not hand over the buildings.
It is a bad situation for Trump because trying to sell buildings fast means he will only get a fraction of their value. It’s a hole he has dug for himself though. If he was on better terms with the judge or prosecution he could negotiate a deal to take more time or use a building as collateral for the bond or something. If he was on better terms with the banks or really had wealthy allies he could find somebody to borrow the money from.
@2 sonofrojblake: NY can seize the assets in NY and sell them to get the money he owes. My understanding is that they can also seize assets in other states but that becomes a legal tangle because state law on recovery varies.
re JM @3:
Since Muskrat has reportedly been in company of The Orange Crook, he may have that ally ready to step up with the cash. Or maybe Putin would furnish the cash under the table.
what happens if he just… doesn’t pay?
SSAT’s plan is simply to keep kicking that can down the road until he becomes president. Interest, shminterest.
If Trump and his co-defendants succeed in getting the verdict overturned, they might not owe anything.
When SSAT is president again, woe betide everyone who has ever inconvenienced him. If you think he was bad last time, just wait. He’s dipped his toe in those waters and this time he won’t even pretend to hold back. There will be hundreds of ways to evade the judgements against him once newly appointed cronies pull the strings.
Also, SSAT has been arguing hard for presidential immunity from prosecution, and the supreme (hah) court has actually agreed to entertain his arguments. It’s a dictator’s wet dream. Lie, cheat, steal, rape, murder even, and be legally immune from any and all consequences. I think that even though the court will rule against him (surely, surely, surely I’m not being naive this time???) he will attempt to broaden presidential immunity and entrench it while in office, and the party faithful will bleat their support.
That’s what you get for voting for a criminal. But the US is tired of fairness. Screw immigrants, equality, the rainbow community, muslims, heathens, aliens, atheists and democracy, the next thing you know the US will be expected to be fair in its dealings with other countries. Well screw that. America is #1, and Russia and Israel have made it clear that nobody can make power stop doing anything that power wants to do.
How many of the cases are State cases as opposed to Federal ones? And I am correct in my understanding that even as president Trump can’t pardon himself of State cases?
Additional question: what happens if he just… doesn’t pay? Do they send in the bailiffs?
The state begins taking his possessions and redistributing them. For example, they might show up at his bank with an order to transfer the money from certain accounts to a state account. Or the state police might show up at Trump Tower (no, really!) and take over the rental office, then start notifying businesses that the building would be sold and their rents might change, then begin organizing an auction or private sale. They probably wouldn’t evict the tenants, because that’s bad for business, but it would be a standard foreclosure operation. Organizations that owe Trump Org money might get a court order to redirect their payments to the state instead of Trump Org., etc. By the way, dealing with this sort of stuff is what a Chief Financial Officer in an ordinary business is responsible for doing -- and that person (unlike Alan Weisselberg) would be an accountant with considerable experience in corporate affairs. CFOs often have to deal with interesting situations, and are expected to consult with legal counsel as necessary and do the right thing. I know a CFO who started at one company and immediately discovered that the founder (who had just left the country) and his wife (who had also just left the country) had embezzled about $4mn from the company’s accounts, and his first responsibility was to liquidate the assets that had been purchased with the embezzled money: a dirt track auto racing team including cars, parts, staff, trucks, etc., and an ostrich farm with 200 ostriches. As he said, “since the ostriches were being raised for meat, we liquidated that operation fairly easily.” Assets are assets, you know?
In the case of Trump, there are a lot of assets to analyze and strategize how to seize and liquidate them. For example, the value of the “Trump” brand is probably close to zero, now, so canceling or selling out licenses there will be the strategy. The golf courses run in the red, pretty consistently, so they’ll probably be liquidated like the ostriches: shut them down and sell off the corpses. Trump is almost certainly (but we don’t really know) “over leveraged” on a lot of his properties, i.e.: he owns them but has taken out loans against them, often for more than they are worth. That, in fact, is the core of the case against Trump Org: they regularly over-inflated values in order to get loans. So, if Some Bank Or Other has lent $100mn against some Trump golf course and the course is only worth $50mn, and Trump Org has paid $10mn of that debt, it’s severely “under water” and the bank may have to foreclose on the property (getting a $50mn property that they paid $100mn for) and the state won’t realize anything on the sale, so they’ll shoot it in the head and shut it down and walk away. If all of Trump’s properties are over leveraged, the state will not be able to get its $450mn and counting from there, they’ll go after it wherever else they can find it.
There is a very good chance that Trump is bankrupt and has been a debt balloon all along. Remember the whole bit about his paying $750 in taxes? That’s because he’s a one man debt bubble -- he was balancing all of his incomes with debts, leveraging those to avoid taxes and to buy more stuff.
All of the micro- and nano-scale violins in the New York area have been sold out.
Oh, PS --
Since E. Jean Carrol I judgement happened first ($5mn) that’ll get dispensed to her pretty quickly. Trump even put up an appeal bond so he could appeal that, which he will forfeit when he loses. He is currently struggling to put up an appeal bond for the second E. Jean Carrol judgement ($85mn) and probably won’t be able to bond the appeal for the civil fraud judgement. The state, naturally, would love if he puts up the bond because then they can just wait until he loses his appeal, take that, and dispense that and let Trump’s creditors fight over the rest.
Today’s news is that Elon Musk’s private plane apparently landed near Mar A Lago. There is a chance, some think, that Musk may be unable to resist the temptation to rescue Trump financially with the appeal bond. Many of us have our fingers crossed, since we believe that a) Trump will never win on appeal and b) Trump is a debt balloon, and c) Musk will wind up losing $450mn and getting a great load of debt-encumbered New York state real estate to deal with.
Most of the Trump properties are going to come with huge tax debts, too, since Trump was apparently under-valuing them for tax reasons, and the state tax assessors will almost certainly be looking at adjusting the tax valuations of everything in the Trump portfolio.
Jazzlet @#6,
You are right that the president cannot pardon himself in state cases. Even with federal cases, he does not need to pardon himself. If he is president, he can simply direct his attorney general to drop the cases.
The cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington DC over the January 6th insurrection and in Miami over the withholding of classified documents are the only federal cases. The two defamation cases brought by E. Jean Carroll in NY, the hush money case involving Stormy Daniels in NY, and the election interference case in Georgia are all state cases.
Thank you Mano!
I have difficulty keeping it all straight, because part of my brain is “don’t waste space remembering all of this information about a man you detest” while another part just trundles along remembering bits of what others here have written. And of course not being American I have no reason to know it from civics classes or living in America; I’ve probably spent almost two years there in total, but all bar a month was before I was nine, the longest time before I was one. I’m also extremely unlikely to ever visit again due to not having flown for over thirty years.
#1 sonof
The fact that he has finally managed to exercise some restraint does not mean his previous behaviour was an act. That behaviour was his real piggish self.
@11: yeah, true. It was an easy answer, looking at him from afar, to believe he simply couldn’t help it, but in fairness, he never claimed that was the case.
@ Holms and sonofrojblake
It comes across to me like a classic bully, they go on bullying until someone with more power stops them. Which does fit with a lot of his other behaviour and doesn’t preclude any other behavioural issues.
Sure seems like Trump’s sycophancy towards Putin and all is him still trying to get the approval of his sociopathic (psychopathic?) father.
…”because he has to cough up real money to appeal those”.
SSAT facing real concequences. The noise you hear in the background is me purring like a cat. 🐈
Mr. Chin Scrotum doesn’t have any problem to get the money to cover the appeals--he has son-out-law Jared K with $2 Billion in cash available to bail him out.
But he won’t get in any hurry to put the funds up--that’s part of his strategy of delay.
Wasting away
our moments that make up a dull day.
His lies are the same in a relative way,
But he’s older.
Short fingers and breath,
one day closer to death.
That’s Thanos, isn’t it? I think you flatter Trump.
Sorry Thanos. You’re right--i meant to say, Mr. Neck Scrotum.