Last week, Trump got crushed in the New York fraud civil suit filed by Attorney General Letitia James, losing a settlement of more than $350 million, which must be paid before Trump can file for an appeal.
Now, James is saying that if Trump fails to pay the fine, she may start to seize his assets.
Talking Points…
- Trump loses civil suit
- James threatens to seize assets
- Analysis
The fact that Judge Engoron ruled against Trump was no surprise. However, the fact that he gave James the additional money she was seeking over the original suit had to floor Trump. With penalties and fees, Trump is looking at nearly a half billion dollars that he needs to come up with in 30 days just to file the appeal. And that is accruing interest to the tune of about $90,000 per day until the fine is paid.
Trump can either pay the total amount out of pocket, which is unlikely or take out a bond, which would require him to put up 10% of the money, which is still a massive chunk of cash. My understanding, per Jonathan Turley, is that Trump would lose that 10% whether he wins or loses the case, which would put Trump out about $50 million plus legal fees IF he wins his appeal.
Keep in mind that Trump already had to pay E. Jean Carroll has more than $80 million from her defamation suit, so no matter how you look at this, Trump is taking a massive hit to his financials.
Now, New York Attorney General Letitia James is forcing the issue. James recently told ABC News that if Trump does not pay the fine, she will go after him for the assets, stating:
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets.”
James then hinted that the first asset on the list would be Trump Tower at 40 Wall Street. She stated:
“We are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers, and yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day.”
As noted above, Trump has his back up against the wall if he wants to fight this case. I would question if he even realized that he would have to put up the money to file the appeal, as he has been fairly quiet about that since the ruling. I now suspect his attorneys are looking at angles to vacate the verdict or at least waive the payment of the fine and block interest until the appeal is heard.
The reality of this is that James used an obscure law and received an unprecedented judgment in this case. Plenty of legal experts, including Turley, believe Trump would have a very good chance of having the payment put on hold during the appeal, but Trump had not had much success in the courts in any of his cases.
James is licking her chops, however, and she clearly means business. She ran for office on the premise of taking Trump down, and she has landed a pretty massive blow to Trump’s business empire. If that ruling stands, she is grabbing about 20% of Trump’s net worth in this one case, which would be crippling, not to mention the fact that Trump cannot conduct business in New York for several years. Trump has 30 days to pay the fine and file his appeal, so we are going to see how this pans out soon enough.
