Trump’s Financial Troubles
What happens if a corrupt man who owes hundreds of millions is President?
NYT (“Trump Spurned by 30 Companies as He Seeks Bond in $454 Million Judgment“):
Donald J. Trump’s lawyers disclosed on Monday that he had failed to secure a roughly half-billion dollar bond in his civil fraud case in New York, raising the prospect that the state could seek to freeze some of his bank accounts and seize some of his marquee properties.
The court filing, coming one week before the bond is due, suggested that the former president might soon face a financial crisis unless an appeals court comes to his rescue.
Mr. Trump has asked the appeals court to pause the $454 million judgment that a New York judge imposed on Mr. Trump in the fraud case last month, or accept a bond of only $100 million. Otherwise, the New York attorney general’s office, which brought the case, might soon move to collect from Mr. Trump.
Putting this dilemma in the larger context of the former President’s other financial difficulties, TNR’s Timothy Noah asks, “Is Donald Trump About to Go Bankrupt?“
Debt is becoming a major campaign issue in 2024. I don’t mean the national debt, which today stands at 99 percent of gross domestic product and which, the Congressional Budget Office projects, will total 116 percent of GDP 10 years from now. Nor do I mean student debt, which President Joe Biden has either reduced or eliminated for close to four million people, to the tune of nearly $138 billion.
No, the debt that haunts campaign 2024 is personal debt—specifically the half-billion in fines that former President Donald Trump owes from two recent legal judgments against him. It’s a campaign issue because, judging from Trump’s past behavior, he will pay off this half-billion-dollar debt just as soon as pigs fly. So it was hardly shocking when The New York Times reported Monday that the former president’s plea for a loan to secure a bond against the largest share of his mounting debt was spurned by some 30 companies, prompting his lawyers to tell a New York State judge that raising the money is a “practical impossibility.”But one firm, Chubb, was willing to offer Trump $91 million to secure his bond in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. Given the extreme unlikelihood that its generosity will be repaid in the traditional way, it’s an eyebrow-raising arrangement, aswhoever lends Trump money will likely have to seek some other, less savory, compensation.
Let’s first take a tally of the red in Trump’s legal ledger. The first judgment against him is an $83 million penalty for continuing to shoot his mouth off on social media about Carroll. This comes after Carroll won a separate $5 million judgment against Trump for sexually abusing her three decades earlier, and for defaming her after she wrote up the incident in 2019.
The second judgment against Trump is a $355 million civil fraud penalty for misleading banks and insurers by pretending to be richer than he really was. Interest accrued before the ruling brought the total to about $454 million as of February 16, the day the judgment was handed down. Since then, additional interest has been piling up at a rate of $112,000 a day, adding another $3 million to the tab thus far.
Between the two court judgments and their attendant penalties, Trump owes $539 million. Even for Trump, that’s a lot of money. Trump is rich but not (as Justice Arthur Engoron, who presided over the second trial, pointed out) anywhere near so rich as he pretends. In April 2023, Trump said in a deposition that he had “substantially more than $400 million in cash,” but Mother Jones’s Julianne McShane says it’s more like $350 million. Forbes puts Trump’s net worth at $2.6 billion; the trajectory over the past decade has been downward. The $539 million Trump owes in penalties represents 20 percent of his fortune. That’s a lot.
Let’s not forget the additional financial liabilities Trump has lately accrued. There’s $392,000 that Trump paid The New York Times a couple of weeks ago for filing a frivolous lawsuit. There’s $938,000 that a judge last year ordered Trump and his attorney to pay Hillary Clinton for filing a frivolous lawsuit. There’s $382,000 that a London judge earlier this month ordered Trump to pay Orbis Business Intelligence, founded by Christopher Steele (of the “Steele dossier”), for filing a frivolous lawsuit. There’s the aforementioned $5 million that Trump paid earlier in the Carroll case. There’s $110,000 in contempt fees that Trump accrued for bad-mouthing New York Attorney General Letitia James during the civil fraud prosecution.
There’s whatever penalty the IRS may impose when it completes its audit of Trump’s 2015–2019 tax returns. There’s whatever lawsuits Trump’s current lawyers will file when he (or various Trump PACs, or the Republican Party) get tired of paying them. On top of all that, Deutsche Bank’s loans to Trump require him to maintain $50 million in “unencumbered liquidity” and a minimum net worth of $2.5 billion. Trump always thinks he’s bleeding money, but right now Trump really is bleeding money—at a hemorrhagic rate.
Were we talking about a random real estate conman without the political baggage, my concern here would be about the seeming injustice of his legal plight in the New York case. Leaving aside whether said person would have been sued by the city to begin with, it seems beyond weird to me that interest on the judgment accrued retroactively to well before the judgment was handed down, thus increasing it by more than a third. And the notion that one should have to post a bond for the entire judgment for the privilege of filing an appeal is essentially a denial of the right to appeal.
But, of course, we’re not talking about an ordinary conman but rather a former President who has a not insignificant chance of being re-elected to that office. One who, in his previous stint, violated pretty much every norm—to say nothing of several Federal laws and the Constitution itself–with respect to financial propriety.* There’s simply no doubt in my mind, then, that he’d be willing to sell his office to wipe out these debts.
Yet, here we are, roughly seven months from the election and he’s leading or even with President Biden in most of the national and swing state polling.
*Obviously, his long effort to set the stage for discrediting the results of the 2020 election were he to lose and his attempts to steal it afterward, including inciting a violent attack on the Capitol, made those acts pale in comparison. But the focus here is on his finances, not his other deficiencies.
“And the notion that one should have to post a bond for the entire judgment for the privilege of filing an appeal is essentially a denial of the right to appeal.”
The problem is that otherwise, somebody could run the money out during the appeal.
From what I have seen, this is standard operating practice in civil suits, where damages are calculated from the moment the tort was committed. It seems fair to me. If I am harming you, costing you money, why should that be suspended while the trial is taking place? That makes no sense.
@Barry: Yes. My understanding is that Trump’s is not the first financial house-of-cards in New York to be sued, and the state is wise to his tactics because conmen have acted like this for time-eternal.
I would also note that you don’t get into this situation until you have lost a court case, on its merits, after making your best arguments before a judge/jury (depending on whether you checked the box for a jury trial or not).
Lastly, the laws of New York are not a surprise for Trump or anybody else. Trump decided to behave the way he did, with full knowledge of the laws and consequences if he was caught.
That level of unsecured debt, hundreds of millions of dollars is disqualifying for the presidency – full stop.
Anybody with a security clearance gets annual training as to why this is the case.
And, as I’ve said before, part of Trump’s defense was that he had half a billion in cash equivalents on hand. He literally submitted this to the court and to the prosecutor as proof of innocence. Guess what? He was lying about that.
I am 99% sure that the size of the verdict was dictated by Trump’s claims as to how fabulously wealthy he is. In the Carrol case and in this one the punishment was deliberately set at a level that would matter to someone so wealthy. If he was actually as wealthy as he claimed, this would be a painful inconvenience. Instead, it could bankrupt him yet again. All because he has no self control and can’t keep his mouth shut.
I would be willing to bet a glass of the scotch of your choice that we will find out that Trump’s assets are much more encumbered than commonly believed, and if you give me even small odds, I’d double that to state that it will be shown that Trump has encumbered the same assets multiple times without informing the lenders.
@Tony W: Just so. When I had been paying off my graduate school loans for 25 years, I made the mistake of telling my father about it. He told me I should just have my lawyer send my alma mater a letter stating that, since I had more than paid off the loan, I would make no further payments. I couldn’t do that because it could have cost me my security clearance and my job.
Mr Lardass’ troubles are so sad, it’s all I can do not to burst out laughing.
Trump claims a net worth of 2.6 billion. He needs to raise roughly 17% of that to post his bond.
I am not a billionaire, but I could raise 17% of my net worth, fully collateralized, in 48 hours. (Or put it up in cash, with a few stock sales.) But then, I haven’t repeatedly declared bankruptcy, I pay my bills, I have not committed business fraud, and I don’t pretend to be worth more than I am.
Chubb backed the ~83 million E Jean Carroll money and says it was fully collateralized. Banks and insurance companies make a nice penny handling these loans, so I can only assume that Trump cannot collateralize the 464 million. Not with 40 Wall Street, not with Trump Tower, not with Mar a Lago, not with his golf courses.
Trump is not a billionaire. He’s a broke-ass con man.
ETA:
“And the notion that one should have to post a bond for the entire judgment for the privilege of filing an appeal is essentially a denial of the right to appeal.”
No, it’s the only way for the state to have any hope of recovering a judgment. I realize this is a bit rich coming from me, but if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
I said way back in 2018 IIRC that Trump should 1) Pardon everyone he can pardon, including himself, 2) Resign, and 3) Flee the country. Good advice, wasted.
I think the word “bankruptcy” is being misused here. We are talking about a shortfall of cash on hand, not (yet) his overall debt being greater than his overall net worth. He should be moving to sell some of his properties before Letitia James grabs the ones closest to her office, which would make a far louder noise that him selling off some overseas golf courses.
About 15 years ago Trump made an offer to buy the Buffalo Bills, and in the course of the NFL’s financial vetting, Trump was required to provide (essentially) a letter of credit to show he could afford to join the NFL’s billionaire owner club. Per Michael Cohen, Trump sought that LoC from Deutsche Bank, and Trump told Cohen to double his, at that time, claimed $4-billion net worth to $8-billion in the Deutsche Bank application. The NFL smelled a rat and refused Trump’s bid. That episode showed Trump’s business M.O. – bullshit the bank, get the loan, and hope it can be timely repaid – and if it was successfully repaid, “no harm no foul.” He’s still yapping that there was no harm to the banks that he defrauded. But having a president who is deeply in debt and a known financial whore would be catastrophic. On Day One, right after he pardons the Jan 6th thugs and himself, Trump would put the FOR SALE sign on the Oval Office.
Didn’t DJT claim a worth of 11-13 billion?
His bond is just 4%….. and he is now saying that he doesn’t have 4% of his worth in liquid assets.
Maybe this portion of the con is collapsing.
@Tony W: Yeah. Trump couldn’t even get security clearance for that very reason. The idea that he should be in charge of everything is ludicrous.
@Joe:
If Trump had the equity in “his” properties to cover the amount he’d get the loan and wouldn’t have to sell. Evidently he does not have that much equity, therefore selling would not solve the problem. He’s an over-leveraged bullshit artist.
He needs to be bailed out by some MAGA billionaire, or the KSA or Russia, none of which would ever get their money back. Put up a sign: Future President For Sale.
@Bob@Youngstown:
Trump may well have a net worth in negative numbers. He may be worth nothing, net. He may just be living on free cash flow from various property management deals. The emperor is nekkid.
ETA: By the way, couldn’t Jared and Ivanka front him the money from Jared’s two billion dollar Saudi pay-off?
@Michael Reynolds:
I questioned in 2016 whether someone with his suspected history of money laundering, mob ties (foreign and domestic), bribery, etc. ought to be calling so much attention to himself. But we see continual proof that our legal system is adapted to beating up people like the young you, poor people accused of routine offenses, but incapable of dealing with an unprecedented situation like a scofflaw ex-president who can afford unlimited lawyer. As someone noted, the system will provide all the due process the defendant can afford. And see my comment on the Forum on Judge Cannon’s latest. She’s trying to feed Trump as much delay as possible without crossing over the line that would force the Circuit to remove her. Let me add that I keep seeing reminders that a reelected Trump couldn’t halt or overturn a NY or GA state judgement. But I expect he thinks that with the clout of the federal government behind him, one way or another he can. And he’d probably be right.
OMG – The man is just stupid. And the people around him cannot, obviously, control his worst impulses.
Trump Sues ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for Defamation Over Nancy Mace Interview
Thank you Donald. Please keep reminding women that you were found liable for sexual assault, to which the judge said, “Yeah, you raped her as the word is commonly understood.”
The judge in on the record saying ‘Yeah, you raped her.” So Stephanopolous doesn’t even have to defend himself. The facts do it for him.
Just stupid. Keep talking Donald.
Karma is catching up to thug and rapist Donald Trump.
Trump is broke. He cannot post the $450+ million bond needed to appeal the NY civil fraud judgment, proving 1) he did indeed commit fraud by lying about his wealth to obtain loans and 2) he lied in court when he said he had half a billion in cash. None of Trump’s billionaire friends or family will help because they know Trump is an untrustworthy con artist. Not even Elon Musk or Jared Kushner, even though Kushner got a shady $2 billion Saudi bribe thanks to Trump.
Exposed as a loser and failure, Trump is having a mental breakdown in response, threatening a “bloodbath for the country” if he loses in November and promising to release the Jan. 6 criminals back onto the streets.
All this after Trump both gave Putin the greenlight to attack more of Europe and killed Republicans’ own bipartisan border bill, the toughest immigration enforcement law ever.
Meanwhile, thanks to Biden and Democrats rescuing the economy Trump left destroyed with his COVID incompetence, I hear America has had the longest stretch of sub 4% unemployment in 60 years, with violent crime reaching a 30 year low I believe.
@Joe: “He should be moving to sell some of his properties before Letitia James grabs the ones closest to her office,”
In a down market for commercial real estate, I’m not sure that putting up a sign reading “For immediate sale — need cash by Monday” is going to bring in the kind of cash he needs…
Trump is supposedly due a financial windfall on March 22 from some merger which would monetize his stake in Truth Social. But maybe not – an analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbLNdxYFWoI
@charontwo:
Anyone who invests in that company will end up losing it. Trump’s shares would be locked for at least six months. It wouldn’t help him in time.
@EddieInCA:
It’s a bit hard to see where $2B or even $500M of valuation comes from. My top hit from Google its revenue:
https://www.axios.com/2024/01/18/trump-truth-social-lose-money-profit-revenue-decline
Truth Social’s value, such as it is, would seem contingent on the continued political relevance of DJT, monetizing his followers.
Is the bond necessary in order to file an appeal, or only to insure no Lardass assets will be seized while the appeal runs its course? These are vastly different things.
As to the reluctance of underwriters to issue a bond, it’s completely understandable.
A surety bond works a bit like insurance for the party named as beneficiary of the bond, not for the party taking on the bond. the first rule of insurance is to refuse all claims, contest them legally as far as possible, and pay only what can’t be avoided then, especially with big claims.
In the case of a surety, the first rule is: make sure the party taking on the bond will be able to pay you the money you’re going to lay out when the claim is paid.
My limited experience with surety bonds is as follows:
The underwriter will try not to pay the claim, and the party taking on the bond will help them fight it by legal means. When these are exhausted, the claim gets paid.
Next the underwriter will try to collect as much of the money as possible, ideally all of it plus interest, from the party that took on the bond. Naturally said party will try not to pay, and will fight it through legal means.
What happens then can vary a lot. With things like bankruptcy, hiding and laundering assets, plain taking refuge in a foreign country, feigning a disabling disease, etc.
So, either Lardass lacks the equity and assets to guarantee payment, or the underwriters think he’ll drag things through the courts and other means, legal and not, while he hides assets, and they won’t collect a penny for years if they collect at all.
He’s open to offers from whoever is willing to front him the money, and beholden to them from that point forward.
I’m sure I don’t have to explain what that means for a person who has access to the nation’s most closely-guarded secrets.
@Kathy:
I do not think it makes sense to analogize this sort of bond to other transactions that are called bonds, think of them as sui generis.
These bonds are offered by big banks and insurance companies and, historically, they have never accepted real estate as collateral, only cash or equivalents or marketable securities. They are just not geared up, not in the business of trying to extract money from real estate collateral.
@MarkedMan:
As I recall, the size of the verdict was determined by applying a multiplier to the financial benefit that trump received by perpetrating the fraud. The multiplier is specified in NY state law. Once the judge determined the value of the fraud, it was all math.
@EddieInCA:
FWIW, they were smart enough to convince him to bring the suit in Federal Court, where it will be quickly dismissed, and he will face minimal sanctions (at best, the opposition’s attorney fees). There is no Federal anti-SLAPP law so this is a low risk situation.
Beyond that, everything we are seeing now is Trump entering the “find out” phase of these cases. That includes discovering that while you can do everything in your power to piss off a judge*, you also are going to reap the whirlwind when you attempt to appeal for special treatment.
* – And to be clear, if Trump had been anyone else, its doubtful the Judge would have put up with as much crap during the discovery and trial phases of this case.
@charontwo: Kevin Drum’s analysis was basically that this was just a continuation of the Trump con that started the first time he went bankrupt – con some rubes into paying much more than something is worth. Full stop.
His thinking was that the investors and Trump were depending on the fact that moronic trumpers would be willing to snatch up the stock during an IPO, allowing the original investors to jump ship. If I understand correctly, though, Trump gets paid as soon as it vests, and doesn’t need to worry about what happens afterward.
@charontwo:
We make use of surety bonds, sometimes denominated in 7 figures, to guarantee contracts, proposals, and very rarely advances.
Banks can issue them here, but mostly they are handled by subsidiaries of insurance companies, or by dedicated bond companies.
Now, these mostly are claimed if a contract gets rescinded. We’ve never had that happen. So, I’ve no direct experience with the aftermath, I’ve heard from competitors and from people at the bond companies about what happens.
In the Lardass case, the money is owed and will be paid. At best, the awards will come down on appeal, but will remain substantial. So the bond issuer will be on the hook for a large amount, unless Lardass pays up the plaintiffs (try writing that with a straight face).
While I am sympathetic to what James wrote above, we need to acknowledge that this is the law playing out as written. We can debate whether or not the law is fair, but Judge Engeron has gone above and beyond in dotting all the i’s and crossing all the t’s when it comes to the application of these laws.
This also gets to a request for someone to actually spell out how this process has denied the former President of the normal due process in a civil case.
@Kathy: Or both. Don’t forget the daily double as a play.
@Matt Bernius:
In wingnut trumpish, due process means “the courts have to buy my cockamamie explanation and let me off scott-free!”
Actual due process and a fair verdict, they call a politically motivated deep state witch hunt to make Lardass look bad.
@Matt Bernius:
Oh, I’m not suggesting otherwise. While Trump’s political stature may have made him a more enticing target, judges everywhere have bent over backwards in a way they wouldn’t for a normal defendant.
It’s just that this case is highlighting a side of the law that I normally don’t pay much attention to, and whatever quirks New York introduces. Some of this seems weird and unjust, as an unsympathetic as Trump is as a conman.
James- I think requiring a bond is pretty normal. The big issue is Trump’s inability to find someone willing to put up the bond. It’s not that unusual to have cash flow issues but if you have good credit and you are truly making money or have solid assets someone will always lend you money. That’s how they make money. The people who make money assessing risk and loaning money have decided he is too risky.
Steve
He’s not going to be president because when (not if) Trump Tower is seized and put up for auction, he’s going to have the Mount St. Helen’s of eruptions, burst a blood vessel (or 20), and collapse in a raving heap on the sidewalk.
Rick Wilson had an interesting comment last week about the mass firing at the RNC. What the press don’t really get is what a lot of those staffers did – working on the boring stuff of identifying and getting out the vote, the nuts and bolts of actual politicking. And all that expertise is gone, to be replaced by people who think GOTV means some kind of new Sony product that just debuted. There will be no info sharing with other GOP campaigns, no help for the bottom of the ticket schmucks who are also running.
And hey, maybe Pence’s refusal to endorse him isn’t just a late-night comedy spiel – maybe it actually means something. Not that Pence has a future but still he had nothing to lose from not saying anything at all. Mike Pence – 2 moments in his life when he did something that counted. Considering the landscape around him, that might be considered heroism. You paying attention, Mitt, Chris and Nikki?
@steve:
could be. Or maybe, or in addition to, he simply doesn’t have enough free and clear assets to justify a bond that size.
@Michael Reynolds:
To which I offer him this from charontwo:
And while I agree with wr that “needs cash by Monday” is not an advantageous sale position, what I really wonder is whether the properties are already fully mortgaged, which actually brings me back closer to Mr. Reynolds.
@Barry: Precisely.
The rule of law is the rule of law and these are not ad-hoc inventions to afflict Trump, they are law and standard. Joyner is rather too easily duped by political declarations w/o looking into what is in fact standard. @steve as indeed completely normal and standard for civil liaibility trials.
@Michael Reynolds: I should imagine neither Jared nor Ivanka are so rash or naive…
@charontwo: further to this, such specific bonds are only accepted normally from certain institutions and said institutions are subject to financial sector / insurance sector regulation (I presume NY case would require NY insurance [USA having the very strange set-up of insurance companies still only regulated at the State level, a strange archaisism])
As a general matter one can assume that Trump’s real estate is heavily levered and probably the portions of equity he actually has in them (as the trial itself made clear he lies extensively on his actual real equity in projects) is thin.
Given that, it is likely that even them as potential collateral pledges are exceedingly thin – the façade of being an actual billionnaire is being undercut.
@Not the IT Dept.:
If seizing his tower ins’t enough, we can rename it E. Jean Carroll Tower.
@Joe:
If his properties are mortgaged, or already are collateral for other loans, then on default they become property of his creditors. I’m not sure whether NY can seize them then. The creditors did not defraud the state.
@Lounsbury:
A far more reasonable explanation is that like most of us, James isn’t familiar with how civil/business law differs from other forms of trial law. Like most of the population, we tend to think about things in terms of criminal law.
Also, I think most of the people making claims about due process violations are making a similar mistake. The most common version is that Trump didn’t have an opportunity to present his case and evidence–which fundamentally misunderstands how the discovery phase of a civil trial works (especially one in which the parties agreed to summary judgment).
He’re a fun little thought I had, I don’t know if this is possible under NY law, however… If I’m not mistaken, Judge Eragon installed a financial monitor in the Trump org. So, it would be fun if, Judge Eragon issued an order equitably tolling the deadline for the appeal based on the representation that Trump can’t get the bond. The ruling should also require Trump to sign an affidavit listing all his assets, the value, all encumbrances, and the net liquidity. This affidavit should be verified by all his attorneys in the matter. Judge Eragon should also require the monitor to file the exact same affidavit. Then set the matter for hearing a day before the stay expires. To many people who didn’t know better, it would look like Trump is getting some grace. To everyone that knows better, I would be a loaded Glock to the dome. It would be beautiful.
@MarkedMan:
If NY is similar to IL, there should be recorder’s databases with all those encumbrances. Any lender who didn’t check deserves to lose their money. Lol, I once had to foreclose a mechanic’s lien on a store in a mall. That was a nightmare trying to figure out the proper legal description and PINs for the complaint. I’m sure all of Trump’s “properties” are similarly nightmarish, but if a dingdong nobody like me can figure it out, I’m sure someone with actual brains could too.
Final thought: I keep seeing people toss around foreign governments coming to his rescue. I doubt the North Koreans have that kind of liquid capital and moving it would be a nightmare. The Russians probably do have that kind of money, but they have a similar problem moving it AND it would almost certainly get noticed. Could you imagine the ads? Hey guys, we caught Putin paying Trump’s debt, I thought he was rich? The Saudi’s have the money AND can probably move it easily, but they have two problems. The first is the ads. The Second is, even though the Saudi’s are weirdos and do things for their own reasons, they are not, categorically, morons. They know that a payment like this to Trump will annihilate any help they get from Democrats AND if Trump doesn’t win in November, they will have kicked themselves in the balls for nothing. I don’t see them doing that.
He’s gonna have to find a rich American, probably a fundie, and hope that fundie doesn’t start bragging that he owns Trump in the name of Jesus.
My understanding is that, even without posting the bond, you can still appeal. The bond merely prevents the other side from starting collection proceedings.
I don’t see anyone here taking note of the fact that so far, all we know is that Trump is saying that he doesn’t have the money. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the money, just that he is saying that.
Although, if I understand @Beth’s proposal, I think she’s thinking that, too. She’s just expressing that in lawyerese.
@Jay L Gischer:
That’s a pretty accurate summary of my thinking. I think he’s currently lying and that he perjured himself at trial. I also think it’s his SOP to just lie like crazy about how much wealth he actually has. This would be an option to force himself to pants himself. The Judge should force him to stand on whether he lied, is lying, or is going to lie and then see what happens.
My guess is if the Judge offered him that he’d magically find the money and the start lying about what the judge did.
@Kathy: But they will have to come forward when the attempt to seize them is made. And then we will know just how much Trump owns them and how much these others do. Remember, he used to refer to “his hotel” even in buildings that he had zero to do with and no equity stake but was getting a mil or so a year for the use of his name.
I acknowledge what Beth said above, but I still think it’s quite likely that Trump is going to be like the bigamist who suddenly finds himself on the 6 o’clock news – and whose various wives and girlfriends suddenly find out about each other.
@Beth:
But does he keep his brains there?
I’d aim for the crotch.
@Jay L Gischer:
It may be the Showbiz Principle: Never put in your own money.
On the other hand, it wouldn’t be a surprise that someone who engaged in financial fraud by inflating the value of his assets, should turn out to have assets worth a lot less than he claimed.
@EddieInCA:
Trump insists–as do his fans–that he was acquitted of rape. I guess sexual assault and battery are A-OK with the MAGAs.
@Not the IT Dept.:
This is interesting to me, because despite my experience with the party being decades ago, this was my guess too. One of my former coworkers runs a Republican GOTV direct mail firm, I wonder if his contract was cut too–in addition to the mass firings at the RNC, the Trump takeover also eliminated contracts with a lot of third-party vendors.
As I said last week, it’s hard to overstate what a mess this will be, or how damaging it will be to campaigns (including Trump’s).
@Beth:
Going on the assumptions that the Saudis are not morons, they’d have planned for how to help their boy Lardass out of this kind of jam as soon as the lawsuit was filed. If this further assumption is true, then most likely they don’t care enough to charge to his rescue.
Which brings us full circle, as their refusal marks them as not morons.
@Jen:
Apparently it didn’t occur to Trump that he’d make a lot of enemies among the fired RNC workers.
@Joe:
Even back in 2016, I was already speculating this as the reality on the ground, noting that Trump’s kids probably knew that when he dies there’s not enough money to throw a wake let alone inherit. IIRC, HarvardLaw 92 commented that I was closer to the facts than I realized.
@Lounsbury:
The rules for rich people must be different than they are for us mere mortals. When his brother’s vineyard was in financial straits, my grandfather simply gave him gold to bridge the gap, telling him to pay it back when he was able. My grandfather was a plumber in the coal mine in the area, so he made more than a regular miner, but it still comprised a sacrifice and a risk. I was taught that you do this type of thing for family if you can.
@CSK:
Yep. But a judge, THE judge, disagrees with them.
Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean Carroll
@Lounsbury:
Not just externally. I have seen reports that the >500 LLCs that make up the Trump organization transfer lots of debt and equity back and forth in order to meet necessary payments and reduce taxes. I wonder if the court-appointed overseer is having to deal with that sort of juggling to keep the whole pile solvent?
@CSK:
Trump has always lived in the moment with little inclination to think through the consequences of actions. But now, my belief is the type of dementia he exhibits is frontotemporal dementia, which starts in the frontal and temporal lobes which is where planning, judgment, strategizing happen – he is effectively lobotomized by dementia.
So I don’t think we will be seeing him do much thinking through the consequences of behavior.
@Beth:
Given that one of Kim Jong-il’s 5-year plans was that at the end of the program 1) every North Korean would be able to buy beef to eat at least once a week, 2) everyone would live in a house with a tile roof, and 3) everyone would be able to eat rice once every day (apparently, most North Koreans eat cornmeal porridge, when they eat a starchy carb at all), I suspect you’re correct on the not having the liquid capital point.
ETA: “My guess is if the Judge offered him that he’d magically find the money and the start lying about what the judge did.”
Given that the bonding companies apparently didn’t find adequate capital to guarantee the bond, color me skeptical about magically finding the money (or even finding it like a Muggle might). Lying about what the judge did will happen either way.
@MarkedMan:
I think that is possible. I think for that to happen, we have to assume that Trump pays his accountants well and he also pays his real estate attorneys better than his litigation attorneys (and that they are relatively more competent at their jobs). I think based on that fact that Weisselberg seems willing to die for Trump, the first assumption may be true.
For the second, we have Michael Cohen? eep! He’s gotta have some low level legal flunkies that know how to obfuscate things.
I’ve had a couple of discussions with clients, who in their minds had tons of money and enemies, that basically boiled down to “How much do you want to pay me to make this a complicated mess of ownership so that if anyone tries, they will give up. Oh, and there’s an upfront cost and a yearly cost based on how crazy I go.” I’m just a small time nobody with a real good grasp of real estate titles and a vivid imagination. I could make enough of a mess to at least give an underwriter pause. Now, for my clients it would meant they would never get a loan, cause they nobody. Trump might be able to bully or scam his way in loans no matter how opaque his set up is.
Now, thinking about it a little bit, your bigamist idea is probably the absolutely most hysterical because it means that right behind the lenders who realized they just got hosed are going to be the regulators who are about to find out that their charges fucked up riiilllll bad. I can’t tell you how bad I would laugh. If this comes to pass, I’m gonna go steal some of Reynold’s cigars and weed and you and I are going to an Sox/Orioles game to party.
@EddieInCA: What do the MAGAts care about the opinion of some biased Democrat-owned judge? That’s why they keep calling it a witch hunt. Even in Longview, WA, the students still read The Crucible, they just know that it’s not really a reference to the McCarthy era.
@Kathy:
I’ve been told at least once that NY law says the state gets their cut for the judgement before the secured creditors get anything. And that while sometimes exceptions are made, it’s relatively rare. I would be only mildly surprised if Trump filed for bankruptcy in order to get the whole mess into a federal court.
@Joe:
In many, if not in most state, and NY is one, the type of bonds that trump is seeking cannot be secured by real property only by cash and cash equivalents, stocks, bonds, etc. The regulation prohibiting the acceptance of property is found in the state insurance regulations. Though there is nothing stopping some wealthy supporter from loaning the money backed by real estate.
Monday, if the bond is not posted Attorney General James will begin executing on Trump properties. It won’t be the real estate she seizes first, but the personal property such as bank accounts and securities. I don’t know about New York, but most states require execution on personal property before seizing realty. Regardless, seizing personal property is the quickest and cleanest way to begin satisfying the judgement. James is aware, via pretrial discovery, of Trump’s bank accounts so those will be the first to go. Trump will find himself in an immediate cash crunch with his bank accounts emptied. Next will be any stock accounts and property which can be quickly liquidated such as vehicles. His prize 737 would be a likely early seizure. It takes a while to seize and liquidate realty, so Tuesday Trump will still, for a while have his real property, but he won’t have a nickel for a cup of coffee.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
There are a number of reasons that the insurers might back away from this particular bond. One of them is Trump’s history of successfully dragging things out in court for years. Combine that with the size of the judgement, and none of them may be willing to tie up a half-billion dollars of their capital for that long.
@EddieInCA:
Oh, I know. But Trump still maintains he was “exonerated”–his word–of rape, and so do the Trumpkins.
@charontwo:
I agree.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: extrapolation from personal family experience as standard should be avoided, rich versus poor rather less relevant than the particular of intra family relationship. While perhaps The Poor(TM) may greater on-average solidarity intra-family, from what I observe this is a stastically weak assumption. Beni Adam, Beni Adam – humans are humans.
@Kathy: Depends on the seniority of collateral and specifics of NY law. Junior creditors can be right-buggered by state judgements as a general matter. (or rather properly confirmed @Michael Cain)
@charontwo: Certainly his antics after the defamation judgements do not suggest great self-control – a decline in his historical animal cunning.
Overall all this rather suggests he will exploit the 2024 political campaign vampirically to the general detriment of the wider Republican party. Which has been rather predictable ever since his 2020 clownish quasi-coup, and why I have been rather genuinely baffled by the idiocy of the Republican leadership as to why they did not properly plot to put a knife in him (while exploiting the insights of success MAGA bought). Even allowing for the lack of proper party cohesion (although perhaps to this very day I do not properly allow enough for actual institutional reality for US parties…), self interest even allowing for the game-theoretical coordination issue would have suggested a barely metaphorical knife in his back was of burning self-interest. At minimum after the fiasco of the last midterms…
@Michael Cain: yes, well that bowl of spaghetti that is “Trump Org” I was not even thinking of, but really of the primary asset level. A house of cards. Having the court appointed overseerer is right inconvenient.
@SKi: Yes – the bond is the route to not paying out while the appeal is in process, not that one can’t appeal – it is quite equitable really as otherwise (as the Jones case shows) the party against whom judgement has been decided can run a clock with frivioulous appeals, delays etc and hide assets etc which is against both State and Public interest as for particularly the sophisticated with extensive legal resources, it would easily empty such judgments of any meaning at all.
@a country lawyer: – ah the trigger for vampiric draining of PACs.
@Beth:
Here you go:
The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy
I’m sure they’ll get along famously.
@Lounsbury:
One can hope for the best possible outcome.
I think the answer to this is somewhat simple, the ultimate power and financial backers of the GOP all, to a man (and they are basically all men) think they are absolutely smarter than everyone else. Zero doubt about their own intelligence and wisdom, and that everyone else is a drooling moron. Coupled with the fact that a large portion of them think that they are personally chosen by GOD (and in a few cases a sort of atheistic Universe) to destroy evil. And that they all think that they can control Trump to their ends.
I think they are all delusional, but I think that’s a pretty simple straight forward answer as to why.
@Beth:
OK by me! I started out as a White Sox fan. I always remember driving to my parents Southsider house from O’Hare and passing a billboard for the South Suburban Economist Newspaper: “The Sox have won! The Cubs have lost! What a beautiful day!”
@Michael Cain:
He’ll do whatever delays the process more.
@Sleeping Dog:
Nothing prevents Lardass from selling his real estate at fifty cents on the dollar to pay for the bond, either.
By now it may be too late. I understand real estate sales take unholy amounts of time and pose many complications.
@Beth:
They’re half right. And one of the drooling morons is bound to be smarter than the rest.
I suspect that there is some game theory problem which applies perfectly, but a lot of it reminds me of an improv troupe really getting into “yes, and…”.
“Donald Trump is great!”
“Yes, and he is fighting a global ring of pedophiles!”
“Yes, and he was undercover when he was palling around with Epstein!”
“Yes, and Joe Biden…”
I would expect if faced with the government taking his assets, Trump will file bankruptcy. With a personal bankruptcy a stay takes place
Personally, right now it is about the 10th anniversary of when Dear Wife and I came out of Chapter 7 bankruptcy. I did it pro se* and with the exception of one missing page, my filing of the paperwork in December 2013 went through without any trouble. Our stay was 90 days and it prevented our mortgage lender from having the house auctioned**.
All of 60 pages of forms were handwritten by me. There was no bankruptcy software at the time.
A few weeks after coming out of bankruptcy (April 1 to be precise), I began selling books at Amazon with no idea how good or bad I’d do business wise. The rest is history.
*- Lawyers wanted thousands for doing a chapter 7 and obviously we didn’t have it. One of these lawyers however did give me helpful advice in 2012 that helped me thwart summary judgment in our foreclosure case. I approached him in 2013 for a chapter 7 and I think Mr. Brown quoted $3-4000;
**- Our mortgage lender motioned the bankruptcy court to have the stay removed so the property could be auctioned. Three curious things- They didn’t supply with me with a copy of their motion before the hearing and instead just told me of the date and time. I got the delay his decision. The lender when we finally had our hearing got the stay removed but took no further action. So DW and I lived in the house for another year yet and till after we had lost our appeal.
Sloppy lawyering (Boy do I have some stories from my experiences) and mortgage foreclosures are the norm down here. That’s how I was able to keep DW and I in the house almost 6 years from when we first first in May 2009 (We continued living there till April 2015. If I had been able to afford a good dirt lawyer, we may still be living there. That’s a long story). It is good, because my health was so bad at the time.
https://www.threads.net/@never_trump_republicans/post/C4srEU7L1SO
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJCQvToWcAEpCCz?format=jpg&name=small
Not taking things well.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJCQvTpWMAAtXCu?format=jpg&name=360×360
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJCQvTqXEAAoESV?format=jpg&name=small
@a country lawyer:
Forget coffee. He won’t have McDonald’s money.
I think the reason that (as far as we know) no MAGA billionaire has seriously considered putting up the bond on Trump’s behalf is that they know he’s heavily leveraged with his real estate assets, and more important, they’d never see their money again, they wouldn’t get paid back.
I expect the Saudis tohelp him launder his way out of his problem.
Lots of winks and nods to be had there.
@charontwo: Trump knows better. Despite what he says, the requirement for a bond has no effect on his right to appeal. He has a constitutional right to appeal without posting a bond. All the bond does is prevent execution on the judgement while the appeal is pending.
https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1769883071086555630
@charontwo:
I’m getting tired of the “election interference” whine.
All these cases were brought before Lardass declared any intention to run for the GQP nomination.
But, wingnut trumpish, the phrase translates as “I’ve candidate immunity!1!!!”
Excerpt from Rick Wilson’s newsletter:
@Kathy:
Selling at $0.50 on the $1 assumes that the amount left after paying off any loans and investors leaves enough money to post the bond. And he needs to do so by Monday.
@a country lawyer:
I feel a certain sense of joy knowing that NY is going to start seizing his assets and he’s going to need to raid the RNC to pay the lawyers to fight the seizures, which will cause the smart money to really flee the RNC. This makes the bloodbath over the RNC even worse.
LOL, a whole bunch of the darkest dark money is gonna be flowing straight into the abyss.
@Sleeping Dog:
He should have started earlier.
Though I’m thinking ten cents on the dollar is a more reasonable assumption.
@Beth:
Isn’t it nice when bad things happen to terrible people who deserve it?
@Kathy:
I would bet the house that the underwriter’s legal depts. looked at the possibility they might have to try to collect from a POTUS…and a highly unethical POTUS at that….and gave their recommendation to their management accordingly.
Trump knows he needs to become POTUS to kill the crim cases and make collections against him impossible to get, but that’s (for the moment) the problem.
Charlie Gasparino* said the quiet part out loud. On Fox, no less.
Fox’s Gasparino Says Billionaires Aren’t Helping Trump Post Massive Bond Because ‘Donald Doesn’t Have a Great Record at Paying Back’ Loans
* Full disclosure. I’ve met Charles Gasparino a few times. Not friends. Not even acquaintances. But I have met him multiple times, spoken to him a few times in passing, and at length (70 minutes) once, and found him to be a center-right straight shooter, despite his position at Fox. I think Charles is more journalist than partisan. And though he’s definitely on the right, he’s never been afraid to piss of the right wing.
@charontwo:
The Truth Social deal is an undocumented political donation to Trump masquerading as a business deal. The “investors” don’t expect to make money off it.
@Lounsbury: I’m sad that you don’t have family to look to for examples of what to do for others, family and friends alike. 🙁
Maybe in your world materialism and cold calculation is all there is; again, that’s really sad to me.
The best part is how the NYC judgement will destroy NYC. No one is going to do property transactions in NYC after James seizes Trump’s assets.
And when NYC cries for a bailout like they did in the late ’70s the voters in all the non-NYC congressional districts need to ensure their representative knows they are out is they give NYC a dime.
@Kathy:
Yes. Especially since he’s likely to try to sell the most leveraged ones first hoping that no one will notice how little he actually owns.
@JKB:
If you seriously believe this malarkey, I am more than happy to take a bet that this will have no net impact on NYC property transactions.
Not everything Jonathan Turley claims is correct.
@JKB: California — the world’s 5th largest economy by itself — and the other liberal jurisdictions that heavily drive the US economy will find creative ways to assist NYC should the need arise, God forbid.
Poorer, welfare queen Republican states and counties couldn’t help NYC anyway, as they are already net takers reliant on Democratic tax dollars.
Oh my forking goddess. This take is beautiful. Bestie, I salute you. You’ve gone to plaid. Amazing. Did you take a bong rip and a huff of Pledge to get into the proper frame of mind. I’m impressed. The certitude.
Wow.
Waow.
I actually got up and showed this to my partner and she was shook! And very confused.
Pack it in folks, JKB won the internet today.
@JKB: Removed by cracker given that Beth has already said everything I was thinking. And with greater style and aplomb at that.
Kudos Beth! Hear, hear!!!!
@mattbernius:
Wait! Wait! Wait! Turley is claiming this as well!?! He gets paid for that? I say crazy shit on the internet all the time and I’m just giving it away? Wtf.
I’ve been depressing the hell out of myself lately reading Tim Snyder’s The Road to Unfreedom. Very good book, sometimes reality is just depressing. He spends a lot of time talking about Eurasianism, a political philosophy, if you can call a load of barking nonsense such, mostly originating with one Ivan Ilyan. Putin claims it guides his actions. Whether he believes in it, or just finds it convenient, it seems to track with Putin’s actions since Snyder published six years ago. Ukraine as part of Russia and subverting the west are both central to Putin’s philosophy. Putin appears to have already expended a lot of effort and money supporting Trump without the money becoming blatantly obvious. I suspect Putin could manage a way to support Trump’s bond. Putin has no legal constraints, Trump ignores legal constraints, and they’ve learned from experience that no one in the U. S. looks very hard for such things.
The only way NYC would be adversely affected by Trump losing his building and business assets is if the NYC business leaders spend the day laughing their heads off at him, and losing a full day’s work as a result.
@EddieInCA: As indeed when one creates of being financially and otherwise unreliable and back-stabbing as Trump has, it rather doesn’t help to get serious financing.
Trump remains the unsuccessful rube’s idea of a billionaire and magnate rather than the actual thing.
@JKB: this almost is amusing – although it is difficult to decide if it is a kind of self-parodic trolling or genuinely held dimwittedness. Although perhaps an odd combination of both.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: What a strange and rather pathetically shallow misreading , but I suppose for someone limited to understanding only their own personal context, the automatic mis-conclusion is an analytical observation is based on their personal issues. I simply do not mistake personal anectdote and experience as generalised.
@Stormy Dragon: as usual you show all the persipacity and stone-headed non-insight of a MAGA person but inverted to Left…. the Truth Social investors were and are clearly banking on a certain kind of pump and dump opreation to make actual cash, not donations to Trump which can rather more easily be done via other means (and more effectively). The efforts to achieve the SPAC have fuck all to do with “political donations” and everything to do with soaking the rubes.
@Bill Jempty: “With a personal bankruptcy a stay takes place
But isn’t the judgement against the Trump organization? And how much of this real estate do you suppose Trump owns personally, as opposed to owning through the company…
@Beth:
Yep, like @Just nutha ignint cracker: I was gonna, but you already did.
@JKB:
@Beth:
JKB – Unlike you, I actually know people in the NYC banking world. I said, on these very pages, multiple times, that NO ONE in NYC banking has done business with Trump in over two decades. All his deals since the 90’s were done with overseas money I can guarantee you that the worlds of NYC commercial real estate and NYC commercial real estate banking are popping champagne corks while watching Trump’s “empire” crumble. You see, not everyone in NYC is a crook, but everyone in NYC knew Trump was a crook, and they’re loving watching his downfall.
So it turns out your billionaire messiah actually has less money than Ryan Reynolds and Tiger Woods.
Based on people I’ve talked to, the consensus is that Trump has an actual net worth of less than $500M. Another person I spoke to said that they think if Trump could completely divest himself of ALL of his properties and pay off all the mortgages, he’d STILL owe the government $200 million. I don’t think anyone understands how leveraged Trump has been for the last decade due to low cost money.
It’s glorious watching him fall.
Beth – You win the inter tubes today.
@JKB: clowns make an average of $50k a year, and here you are giving it away for free.
Just a little bit of random info:
The total value of NYC real estate – all of it – is conservatively valued at $1.5 Trillion. When you add in personal wealth on top of the real estate it raises the value of Manhattan to over $3 Trillion.
Yeah. Trump/s case is going to wreck that.
Moron….
@Lounsbury: We look at the world diffferently and value different things. Go in peace and serve what/who ever you serve.
@MarkedMan:
I suspect that you are unfamiliar with my tastes in scotch. Nevertheless, I agree with you completely about Trump’s finances.
@Rick Smith:
I encourage the Dems to emphasize this point during the campaign. Let the GOP try to paint the defense security vetting process as part of the “Deep State”.
@JKB:
This is, easily, the funniest thing you have ever said. Comedy gold. Worthy of an HBO special.