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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Less than a month after New York Attorney General Letitia James said she would be willing to seize former Republican President Donald Trump’s assets if he is unable to pay the $464 million required by last month’s judgment in his civil fraud case, Trump’s lawyers disclosed in court filings Monday that he had failed to secure a bond for the amount.
In the nearly 5,000-page filing, lawyers for Trump said it has proven a “practical impossibility” for Trump to secure a bond from any financial institutions in the state, as “about 30 surety companies” have refused to accept assets including real estate as collateral and have demanded cash and other liquid assets instead.
To get the institutions to agree to cover that $464 million judgment if Trump loses his appeal and fails to pay the state, he would have to pledge more than $550 million as collateral—“a sum he simply does not have,” reportedThe New York Times, despite his frequent boasting of his wealth and business prowess.
Why would he need to raise the money? He told the court he had $500M in liquid assets.
Could it be that he was being untruthful in his statement to the court? I think there is a word for that.
He testified to $400M, and he already put up a $100M bond for the other thing. But the whole point of this is that he overvalues things, right? I bet when his people had to get down to the actual state of the accounts and not what DJT feels they are, it was probably only $200M or so that is liquid.
It’s not worth going after him again for overstating that in court. It’s too easy to skirt around. His punishment will come when the DA starts seizing and auctioning stuff to pay the judgement.
He put up I believe $2m for the other thing. The rest was covered by the bond company.
So he should still have at least $398m if he claimed 400…
That’s not quite how it works. When the bond company writes the bond, they don’t just take the $2m from the client and then the client is off the hook. They ask the client to put up collateral. So in order for Trump to secure this bond, he would have had to set aside the full amount of the bond and say “If the verdict doesn’t get reduced on appeal, I am giving you all this stuff, and not using it for anything else in the meantime”.
All Trump is getting for that fee is not actually having to sell those assets now, and have any overage refunded if the appeal gets the verdict reduced. (Given the interest rates right now, the passive income on that kind of cash is not trivial).
True, but we were talking only about liquid assets here, I thought. Otherwise, what would the $400m you mentioned be referring to? Or - what specifically did you mean and do you have a source by any chance?
A source for which part?
I’ve read some different things about what those bond companies will take as collateral. They are not likely to take on real estate as collateral. Not only is it a pain to unload, but the properties also likely have existing liens on them, reducing the value that can be recovered. The bond companies are well within their rights to say that they will only accept cash or marketable securities as collateral.
With how much Trump is known to fuck contractors I wouldn’t be surprised if the liens are more valuable than the properties themselves.
And it’s the fucking contractors that vote for him ffs.
Turkeys voting for Thanksgiving
I suspect that trump life is over if he fails to win in November, he will either take it himself or it will be effectively over bc he will be in jail and penny less. To that end he does not care about consequences of some extra crimes in the near term.
Nah, he’ll start screaming about rigged elections and try for a coup.
THAT he will do regardless of election outcome
Again
He’s a serial narcissist. Maybe one of the worst in the current world.
No way does he take his own life. That would require having empathy, which he absolutely does not have.
No. trump won’t take his own life. He’s not committed to any cause like someone like Hitler, nor does he feel backed into a corner.
What he’ll do instead is pander/cater to his unhinged base and con them out of what little money they have left.
That’s all after he pillages the coffers of the RNC for what he can use there to pay for his legal fees/woes.
It’s possible, and I don’t want to hope for too much here, but it’s possible, that trump maybe legit takes down most of the RNC/republicans if he fails to win in November.
If he wins though, I think we’re all pretty fucked. He’ll use tax money to pay for that judgement or some shit. He has no morals, ethics, or shame.
Can’t do that. President doesn’t control the purse, both revenues and budget come from Congress. He’d have to get Congress to include paying his legal fees in the budget and manage to pass that budget. Then he could pay for the judgement with tax money.
You know that whole “fiscal cliff” thing that keeps happening? That’s a consequence of this - Congress assigns a maximum amount of debt that the President can issue bonds until it is reached to pay for things in the budget (issuing bonds is technically a power of Congress, but they delegate it up to a set value via legislation so that they don’t have to bother). Congress also assigns how much money will be spent on each thing (aka the budget). When the President is required to spend more by the budget than there is in tax revenue plus bonds he is allowed to issue, that’s the fiscal cliff. It’s literally a problem that Congress creates (by creating a budget that spends more than is available in taxes and bonds), that only Congress can fix (typically by raising the amount the President can issue in bonds), but that usually gets blamed on the President.
That’s good to know, thank you for the detailed explanation.
I’m still concerned he’ll do it, and his sycophant supporters will enable him and let him do it because they see this as him being politically persecuted. You’re probably right, but if trump wins, nothing is normal, there is no rule of law.
And we’ll see how well that statement holds up when it runs up against a candidate who’s already been impeached twice, is overleveraged and compromised from foreign assets, who’s ON RECORD HAVING SAID HE’D BE A DICTATOR WITH ALL THE POWERS OF A DICTATOR FOR THE FIRST FEW DAYS HE WAS IN OFFICE IN HIS SECOND TERM.
That’s how dictatorships start, they ask for the powers for just a few, just a little bit, and then it never gets returned.
So I have low confidence that anything we consider rule of law today will be in effect if trump should win a second term, with all the insane support he’s got within the GOP right now that currently controls the lower house.
Maybe he was talking in terms of Zimbabwe dollars
Fat fucker has no clue Zimbabwe is a thing.
Best he can do is Man, Woman, Boat, Plane.
…i thought his was person, woman, man, camera, TV?..
Yeah, you’re right, you should be president I guess.
…ow; i walked right into that one!..
I thought he had claimed he didn’t? Do you know where I can find this information?
He testified last year that he had around $400 million in cash:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-fraud-letitia-james-new-york-engoron-38bc3a7f2ccb22555c026e9bf70fd5bb#:~:text=Trump maintains that he is,to properties and other investments.
That’s still not enough.
Also giving up ALL your cash is a bad idea, you’d want to do that as a mix of cash and other assets, so he’d still need someone willing to use those as collateral.
You know what else is a bad idea? Fraud.
We wouldn’t give it up, he woild just use some of it as collateral for his bond. He gives insurance company $40,000,000 and they pay the full amount, or whatever they negotiate.
He doesn’t have enough cash for the down payment for his loan essentially.
This isn’t bail with a small risk of loss paid for by the guaranteed loss of 10% to the bondsman. This is 99% Chance of loss on a settled case with the reasonable expectation that Trump would fight collection tooth and nail, try to pay less than face via bankruptcy etc. It’s a risk of hundreds of millions of dollars that would take YEARS to settle. Years in which lenders could be earning returns if that money was invested elsewhere. 30 institutions said no.
He needs to secure the loan with cash or cash equivalents for the whole shebang. Nobody wants properties which he has already borrowed against even if the net of value and loan are positive to the tune of hundreds of millions its risky and challenging to sell. He should have started mortgaging when the judge told him he’d lost and they were only determining the scope of the loss so he could have obtained favorable terms.
He has to put up 550 million.
If he locks up 400 million (all his cash) he has no cash until this is over with and he gets it back and he can then sell assets if needed to cover it.
That’s not a good financial move for anyone.
No one wants to use any of his asset collateral because he’s lied about its worth so he has to use his cash.
Edit: to clarify, no one wants to risk 500 million if he gives them 50 because they don’t think they can get the 500 back from him if he tries to back out of it.
Again, as mentioned, whether it’s a good financial move or not, doesn’t really matter if he doesn’t have the capital to flex beyond meeting the requirements.
It’s a legal judgement. It might force him to do things that are not good financial moves. That’s tough shit in life for the rest of us too. The thing here is that trump’s never been held accountable, legally, for any of the crimes he’s committed before. This is what happens when one of the oligarchs falls off their throne and gets treated like the rest of us.
Of course, to him, he feels like this is unfair, because he’s never been made accountable. But this is just a fucking Tuesday for the 330+Million rest of us.
Just to be clear - I’m in no way shape or form supporting Trump. I’m just pointing out using all your cash, in any circumstance, is not a good idea. He has to solve his own problem even if it’s a bad situation
You don’t have the option of looking at a court judgement like an investment opportunity. This is a legal judgement. You don’t get to “hold onto cash” just because not having it would risk exposure or something.
You do this, or they start selling your assets off for an unflattering amount of money, and/or you can go to jail, or have all of the things you owned possessed and auctioned off to pay for the judgement.
The thing you don’t get to do is not pay.
This isn’t about him paying his legal bill, it’s about a bond to appeal.
Using all your cash to appeal is a bad idea for ANYONE
if you lose the appeal, you can then decide on your cash and asset mix to pay it off.
Edit: think about it this way. If you can put up asset collateral on a appeal that’ll take a year, that’s a whole year you could be earning interest on the cash and have cash for an emergency. Maybe you go half and half so you don’t risk as much of the other assets. Leaving yourself with no cash is just bad. He’s in a really bad situation so maybe he only has bad options, but that doesn’t mean it’s not bad.
That’s fair. You’re correct, I wasn’t thinking about it in that context.
It’s Trump…I’m sure he claimed both and neither.
Lol entirely possible
cnn: (from yesterday news) “told fictional stories”
Fuck even liberal media won’t call a spade a spade.
Yeah, everyone’s scared of using the L-word because of the legal liabilities involved. And if I was the editor, I would 100% assume trump would attempt to fucking sue my paper for libel if I say anything that gives him an inch.
So that’s probably why everyone’s scared of saying “Lied”, because trump can, will, and has sued people for things like that.