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It’s wrong. It’s still all wrong. The New York Appellate Court has reduced the bond in Donald Trump’s “fraud” case from $454,000,000.00 to $175,000,000.00. Trump and his co-defendants have ten days to come us with the ransom bond. And, of course, the interest. The extortion by AG Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engeron is now smaller, but extortion none the less. Monstrous and likely Unconstitutional, too.
Here are the details:
An appeals court gave Donald Trump a break on Monday, allowing him to post a $175 million bond in his New York civil fraud case, instead of a bond covering the $467 million he and his company now owe.
Trump will have 10 days to come up with the $175 million bond stemming from his New York civil fraud judgment.
Trump and other company executives at the Trump Organization were liable for the nearly half-a-billion dollar penalty after the court found last month they had conspired to inflate the value of their real estate assets to dupe lenders.
Trump is on the hook for the bulk of the giant judgment. As of Monday, he personally owes the state of New York $457 million.
he former president was originally given 30 days from the February 23 judgment to pay up or secure an appeal bond to cover the cost of the penalty while he fought the ruling in court.
Trump got the lifeline on Monday as he appeals the court’s ruling.
As he tried to secure a bond, which would have required he provide $1 billion in cash reserves to cover the risk, he was spurned by roughly 30 companies that provide appeal bonds, The New York Times reported.
He accrues $112,000 in interest each day he delays payment.
All of this is monstrous because the court case was bullshit. No one was defrauded and all involved made money. It’s Unconstitutional, from Cornell Law School because:
The Eighth Amendment prohibits certain types of punishment: excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.1 As discussed in more detail in the following essays, these prohibitions were intended to protect persons convicted of crimes from government abuses of power.2 Viewed broadly, the Eighth Amendment responded to these historically grounded concerns about disproportionate or cruel punishments by attempting to ensure that punishment is “proportioned to both the offender and the offense.” 3 What is excessive is also determined by reference to modern standards; the Supreme Court has suggested proportionality may evolve over time.4 Out of the Eighth Amendment’s three clauses, the bar on cruel and unusual punishment has been most frequently interpreted by the Supreme Court, likely in part due to inherent ambiguities in determining what qualifies as cruel or unusual.
Trump couldn’t pack up Trump Tower or 40 Wall Street and leave town. Nor could Letitia James padlock his properties since other people have ownership interests in his buildings. There should be no bond. If people can stab other time after time and walk out with no bail…need I say more? Trump rocked with his first brief press conference when he left the court room after setting a date for Alvin Bragg’s campaign hush money/Stormy Daniels case. Trump gave a lovely one world answer: “cash”:
JUST IN: Donald Trump says his collateral on the bond in the NY fraud case is cash after a New York appeals court lowered the bond to $175 million.
Reporter: "What's your collateral on the bond?"
Trump: "Cash."
Trump also shredded Judge Engoron, calling him a "disgrace to this… pic.twitter.com/PvNY4wHlAO
— Richard Citizen Journalist (@RichardPotcnerJ) March 25, 2024
Boo-freaking-yah!
Later, Trump gave a Trumpian press conference:
Trump is right each and every case is ridiculous. We are in the middle of an election and Biden is letting the worst of the worst come into our country. While Biden persecutes Trump and sets up the lawfare, he also plans to stop Trump from stealing the 2024 election. Bah.
For today, the good news is that Letitia James won’t be pulling the T*R*U*M*P letters off of the Trump Tower for the time being:
An old pic I took a few years ago but thought it’d be a nice time to post it.
$175,000,000.00 bond. Cash.
And this beauty of a building, Trump Tower, is still untouched by the nasty AG Letitia James.
— Jinee (@jineeminee) March 25, 2024
Weep on, Tish.
Featured Image: Gage Skidmore/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons
A reader says: OMG, lol lol lol the 8th Amendment?! Are you for real? I don’t have a law degree and even I know that’s an utterly insane and ridiculous argument. Talk to an actual lawyer or legal analyst… if you can even get them to listen to you through laughter.
This judgement is perfectly legal. He cheated on his taxes, full stop. He over inflated the value of his assets for loans and undervalued them for taxes. That’s called fraud. There’s documentation of it and everything. Not every crime has to have a literal victim. In this case, the victims are the businesses and citizens of New York who filed their taxes and paid them. The money that Trump didn’t pay could have gone for important services like libraries— unless you are all for people being uneducated and against library services!— fire, police, state and municipal services, etc. Everyone pays for these in the interest of the greater good. Trump got the benefit of any services he used without having to pay for them. That’s cheating. Obviously you’re ok with that, though, right? I mean who needs municipal services and officers, police, decent roads, someone to rescue you in a fire, clear the streets of snow, etc, etc….?
Also, he still owes the $454 million. James is still going forward with the seizure of the New York properties. There’s been lots of reporting that he doesn’t have the money. (His lawyers even said as much in their appeal.) He put up his ENTIRE Charles Schwab personal investment account as collateral for the E Jean Carroll bond in the amount of $91 million. (I think she said that’s his kids inheritance basically. ) He has nothing else. There is no other cash he can put up, or property. If he had it, he would have used it already. James can still seize his assets.
This decision also doesn’t reduce the amount of money he actually owes and it only relates to how much he has to put up to appeal the case. If he loses his appeal, which is likely, he will still have to pay the full fine.
Seriously, why can’t you ladies find decent lawyers to listen to and/or get advice from?
The man with the legal degree from a Cracker Jack box.
The BANK determines what a property is worth to lend money against it. The BANKS were not defrauded – the loan was paid as agreed to. The STATE TAX ASSESSOR determines what a property is worth to levy taxes against it. The STATE TAX ASSESSOR was not defrauded – the taxes were paid as levied.
The ONLY time anything like this is “fraud” is when you inflate assets or deflate liabilities in order to deceive INVESTORS. If ACTUAL fraud had happened, it wouldn’t be New York after him – it would be the Securities Exchange Commission. Who are nowhere to be seen, since there was NO FRAUD.
GWB says: I will quibble with one point: it would also be fraud if he misrepresented the properties when either the bank or tax assessor came to check them out. Saying the building was wired with fiber optic when it wasn’t (but he had placed fiber outlets all over the place without running the fiber behind them), or he presented false inspection forms as to habitability – actual falsified evidence of things that would affect the value. But he didn’t do any of that – or we would have had that presented in evidence.
Your points are spot on: it’s not up to me to value my property, but the people who will use it as collateral or to calculate my taxes. And there was no one defrauded in this case.
Point. But those are frauds that you really can’t pull off without collusion with somebody (or several somebodies) in government. Tax assessors and banks (for large loans) pull the filed building plans and building inspector reports.
In fact, tax assessors only rarely go out to the property – they work just from the records, unless you challenge their valuation. Banks will go, though. The main things that change either valuation is determining the depreciation from age, or use, or poor maintenance.
GWB says: This judgement is perfectly legal. He cheated on his taxes, full stop.
This tells me you don’t have a clue. Tax crimes is not what he was charged with. I’m not even sure they came up at trial except as “evidence” of his supposed fraud.
But, since you brought them up….
How about the illegal release of Trump’s tax returns?
Seriously, why can’t you anti-Trumpers pretend to be decent lawyers?
GWB says: Toni, the Babylon Bee (what Insty calls “America’s Newspaper of Record”) nailed it with this:
Letitia James Prosecuted For Grossly Overvaluing Trump’s Fine
I’m really praying for this one to be a prophecy, not just satire.
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