Analysis
After a bad legal week for Trump, even worse
could be on the horizon
Hugo Lowell
in
Washington
The ex-president is scrambling to come up with $450m
after the judgment in his fraud trial as the next case looms
Mon 19 Feb
2024 15.29 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/19/donald-trump-legal-trouble-whats-next
Donald
Trump was already reeling from multiple legal setbacks when a New York judge
last week handed the former president a staggering defeat in his civil fraud
case, ordering him to pay roughly $450m to the state after finding him liable
for conspiracy to manipulate his net worth.
The
decision by Justice Arthur Engoron capped a bad legal week for Trump, who had
watched his lawyers attempt to get access to sealed filings in a classified
documents case in Florida and then watched his lawyers lose their attempt to
delay his first criminal trial in New York.
There may
be worse coming.
The
immediate priority for Trump’s legal agenda remains, according to people
familiar with the matter, figuring out how to come up with $450m – a figure
that includes pre-judgment interest – or finding a company prepared to help him
post bond within 30 days of when the court entered the judgment, so that he can
appeal the penalty.
Trump saw
the ruling as a two-pronged stab at his personal identity: it is likely to
almost entirely drain his accounts of cash and it bars him from running the
Trump Organization, the vehicle he used to attain his fame, for three years.
Trump’s
preference is to avoid using his own money while he appeals and his lawyers
have contacted several companies to provide the bond, which essentially assures
the state that Trump has the money to pay the judgment should he lose his
challenge.
To obtain
the bond, Trump would first have to find a company willing to accept him. He
would then have to pay a premium to the bond company and offer collateral,
likely in the form of his most prized assets, which would accrue interest and
fees.
If the
penalty is upheld on appeal, Trump will face a huge financial burden. In an
interview under oath with the New York attorney general’s office last year,
Trump said he had $400m in cash and cash equivalents, though that figure could
not be verified.
A
proportion of that figure comes from Trump’s sales of two properties after he
left the White House, as well as new ventures including a real estate branding
deal in Oman.
The deals
were intended to give Trump a cash cushion in the event of a sudden financial
setback. But even if Trump’s $400m claim was accurate, that would clearly be
wiped out should the $450m penalty be largely upheld.
Adding to
the total sum Trump must disgorge is an $83.3m judgement entered against him
last month after he lost the second defamation trial involving the writer E
Jean Carroll. That figure is not payable immediately, but it is another massive
figure for which he has to account.
Trump may
ultimately find himself without enough of a cushion and face the need to
mortgage or sell some of his properties. While Trump is not expected to go
bankrupt – his total holdings are in the billions – it would mark a
particularly humiliating moment for the former president.
The legal
woes extend beyond causing him financial pain. On Thursday, it was confirmed
Trump would face trial in New York on charges that he falsified business
records over hush money payments to a porn star to shield himself from bad
press before the 2016 election.
Jury
selection in the case is now scheduled for 25 March, despite a last-ditch
attempt by Trump’s lawyers to stave off the trial.
Before the
hearing to affirm the trial date, people involved in the situation said,
Trump’s advisers had retained some hope it might be delayed even if they
believed it was the most politically advantageous case of all his four criminal
indictments.
If Trump
must face a criminal case before the election in November, they would choose
the hush money case because Trump may not face jail time even if he is
convicted, an outcome that could desensitize voters to the other, federal
criminal cases looming before him.
But Trump
may have to grapple with the fallout from another legal setback in Atlanta,
after he and his co-defendants charged by the Fulton county district attorney
over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election struggled to argue she should be
disqualified from bringing the case.
The second
day of the evidentiary hearing examining whether Fani Willis’s romantic
relationship with her top deputy, Nathan Wade, amounted to some sort of
kickback scheme sufficient to generate a conflict of interest went sideways for
the defendants.
The
defendants called Terrence Bradley, the former divorce lawyer for Wade, to
testify that the relationship started before Willis hired Wade to work on the
Trump case on 1 November 2021, in order to contradict Willis and Wade’s
testimony.
The
objective was to have Bradley contradict under oath the testimony of Willis and
Wade, in order to make the case that they committed perjury and argue the
presiding Fulton county superior judge, Scott McAfee, to discredit their
testimony.
But Bradley
was a particularly reluctant witness and testified he had privileged
information about when the relationship started, but not personal knowledge he
obtained separate from him representing Wade.
By the end
of the day, it appeared uncertain whether the defendants had met their burden
of proof to force Willis off and make the criminal charges in Georgia go away.
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