A New York appeals court on Monday reduced the $454 million that former President Donald Trump was required to put up while he appeals his civil fraud case. Now Trump must put up, by April 4, a mere $175 million. The trouble is, he may not get a bond for that amount, either. Should that happen, this act of judicial mercy will end up feeling to Trump like a curse.
The stay deprives Trump of the only argument on which he was gaining any traction at all—that the amount the court required him to put up was excessively high. Four hundred and fifty-four million was indeed an unusually large judgment against a private corporation or individual. (The distinction between Trump and the Trump Organization is paper-thin.) Monday’s appeals court decision doesn’t reduce that judgment, as New York State Attorney General Letitia James pointed out in a written statement. But it does dramatically reduce the amount Trump needs to turn over to the state while he pursues his appeal. It also gives us some hint that the appeals court may reduce Judge Arthur Engoron’s $454 million judgment to, well, $175 million.
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I’m just completely flummoxed as to how judges keep playing right into Trump’s hand on shit like this and then expect the rest of the general public to treat them - and by extension, the entire court system - seriously.
Like, he’s got an obvious, provable, and systematic tendency to straight up not pay for shit, and it’s documented as a matter of public and legal record. It’s not a mystery. It’s not ambiguous. It’s not justifiable beyond “he doesn’t like giving money to people that are not himself”. It’s an unavoidably clear pattern and practice.
something something leopards eating faces
I’m glad he’s probably gonna get fucked on the appeal bond, but jesus tapdancing christ the amount of categorically unjustifiable lifelines he has repeatedly gotten handed to him by the courts is simply indefensible.
He won’t be fucked on the appeal bond, they will lower it and give him 30 more days. Laws are for poor people to obey.
Republicans are good about showing up to every election and vote all the way down the ballot, which helps them pack the courts. They can then do things like this to give their party a better chance at winning an election.
I don’t think the judges even expect us to treat them seriously. At this point they’re so far above us they don’t even care anymore. Trump already put them in there. Short of dying, they aren’t going anywhere.
Please explain the 🐆 part
That would be the absolute best outcome, because he cannot claim that he’s been treated unfairly. The entire
justicelegal system has bent over backwards to be accommodating. In a rational world, with reasonable people, it would matter.They will just lower the amount again
Yep, I’ve always known that the rules don’t apply to the rich but I had no idea that extends to people pretending to be rich too. Jesus christ I could’ve been pretending to be rich and doing whatever I want this whole time? Boy is there egg on my face!
That only works if you come from a rich family though.
Yup, because the first people you need to convince you’re rich, are the bankers. They lend you the money so you can buy the lawyers, suits, ties, and golf courses to convince the rest of the rubes.
That’s exactly the lesson he learned yesterday. If you bitch and moan and threaten to not pay they money, it’ll get reduced. Why not do it again?
it’s a narcissistic behavior that I see at the core of the conservative movement time and again. demand the most, and then when you get it (or most of it) continue to insist that actually you get the least and deserve more in the name of fairness
Oh shucks, how did this bar get all the way up there?
Layaway Don
That would be the absolute best outcome, because he cannot claim that he’s been treated unfairly.
You mean the thing he has baselessly claimed for the last 10 fucking years?
because he cannot claim that he’s been treated unfairly
lol watch him
Same
This is what many people don’t understand. The 100% Democratic Governor appointed, Democratic State Senate approved Appeals Court is not helping him out.
They could have done nothing and his properties would be getting seized. They are absolutely helping him by dragging this out.
Do you think the process of seizing property is fast? They don’t just change the locks. It’s a whole lot of things. They would probably have to go one by one appraising, finding a buyer, and wading through the debt owed on the mortgage. It’s slow and they don’t want to do any of that, if possible.
Judgements this large are very rare. Trump is absolutely fucked even coming up with $175 million in cash now and the rest later.
Remember, the court has a monitor watching the trump org approving every check and money transfer right now. They probably know exactly how much money he has in the bank. They probably just asked for 80% - 90% of what he has available. They are fucking him and he thinks he won.
Which has all been delayed even longer.
Remember, the court has a monitor watching the trump org approving every check and money transfer right now.
The way you wrote that suggests something different than what the monitor does.
For one, they monitor after the fact. Likely one a month and after book close. So they don’t monitor in detail while it is happening. Secondly, transfers above a certain amount need to be reported. That amount can be an aggregate. Those need to be reported and I think the monitor needs to ok them before they can be executed.
That’s quite different from what you seemed to suggest, meaning that the monitor needs to approve every check.
It was changed recently. The monitor has to be told ahead of time now.
Under the order, Trump must give five days advance notice “of any transfer of cash or other assets” totaling $5 million or more, “including transfers to any individual defendant.”
Under Thursday’s order, Trump must also give the monitor 30 days notice of “any planned creation or dissolution of business entities, including equity ownership purchased or assets acquired by any Defendant,” the judge further ordered on Thursday.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nys-judge-engoron-is-tightening-the-leash-on-trump-2024-3
It was changed recently. The monitor has to be told ahead of time now.
But only in some cases, not for everything. If a monitor would need to approve everything that would require quite a lot of people. A business often has quite a lot of regular invoices and so on.
You caught me in a minor technicality. Yes, they don’t need to ask the judge if they can buy lunch.
That doesn’t make a difference overall though. Trump is not going to hide meaningful amounts of money through lunch orders and paychecks.
He’s gonna talk his way down to where he ends up paying Jack shit and gets away with this shit once again
This is a bond for the appeal. The court could decide to make it $0.00 but he still owes the full amount if he loses the appeal.
And even if he paid the full 454mil to appeal, he still gets it back if he wins.
if he loses the appeal.
By the time that happens, he might be in the Oval Office again. That means he can just sell a few more state secrets to the Saudis, or straight up just not pay, cause some constitutional crisis and a civil war.
He prefers that to paying.
I don’t want him to have extra time to hide assets, which he will do. I am also appalled at the double standards of justice, now on display with a giant searchlight pointed towards them.
Well that he gets it back if he wins is part of the grounds for the appeal.
If you force someone to liquidate and then he is found not guilty, the harm this has caused can/will outweigh the potential punishment many times over.
So see that separate from the case and the person, that cannot be right.
Don’t get me wrong, I feel no sympathy at all for defendant trump, but in general the punishment should be the punishment.
In general, the trial judge is presumed to have determined the right punishment.
There are plenty of people in jail who are appealing their punishment. If they win, they will still never get back the time they already served. That harm has been done.
You seem to be suggesting that every defendant is entitled to exhaust all their appeals before any “harm” is done, but such a system is unworkable.
That is actually a good point. Thanks.
There are plenty of people in jail who are appealing their punishment. If they win, they will still never get back the time they already served. That harm has been done.
In many states, there is some variety of recompense for that time, which obviously can’t fully repair the damage of being wrongly imprisoned but at least is better than nothing. It’s not like the courts have a time machine and can retroactively un-imprison someone.
Also, if they’re in prison, then that was a criminal trial, not a civil one. Criminal trials have a much higher standard of evidence (typically unanimous decision of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by a group of 12 jurors) as opposed to civil trials (typically a judge thinks it was at least slightly more likely than not). The “typically” is there to account for cases like plea bargains (where the accused pleas guilty to lesser charges in exchange for not being tried for the harsher charges) or where the accused requests a bench trial, that sort of thing.
In this case, the ability to appeal at all is conditional on posting a bond, the purpose of which is to prevent the defendant from essentially spending the funds that should go to damages on lawfare instead. That said, it makes a kind of sense to lower the bond, presuming the plaintiff has slow to liquidate assets that are almost certainly in excess of the value of the damages. If I were the judge, I’d also freeze any and all sale or transfer of any of his real estate until after the appeal to ensure he retains the ability to liquidate said real estate in case he loses the appeal or still cannot pay the damages with liquid assets after any reduction from the appeal.
You seem to be suggesting that every defendant is entitled to exhaust all their appeals before any “harm” is done, but such a system is unworkable.
I can see why executability matters, but this does indicate we’ve violated an architectural requirement laid out in the Constitution, Amendment 6:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
This is failing right now if we can’t give the person their trial quickly.
We’re also incarcerating too many people.
Not saying I know the solution, but we need to change something to make our system more efficient. Either more courts, or fewer arrests, or both. Or refactoring some penal code to work more efficiently.
My vote would be in favor of just legalizing drugs.
I suppose I’m not understanding the argument that a relatively slow appeals process violates someone’s right to a speedy trial. By definition, if you’re appealing, you’ve already had a trial and lost.
I do think we are incarcerating too many people, but serving time while waiting on an appeal doesn’t inherently violate someone’s right to a speedy trial.
Yeah if you use that set of definitions. However they didn’t mention appeals in the constitution, and if a person’s guilt can be changed by an appeal, then it isn’t established and you’re punishing people who could be innocent.
A person’s guilt is established at the original trial.
An appeal is an attempt to prove that the original trial committed an error. Until an error is proven, the person is treated as every other guilty person.
The 6th amendment doesn’t really apply since it’s a civil suit, not a criminal trial.
The law is a machine we all pass through. We don’t want to change the machine just because an enemy is passing through it right now.
But as has been established, he shouldn’t have had this money in the first place. The fine is based on how much he over inflated the value of his property to get bigger loans. Had he not done so he may well have been bankrupt already.
True, the whole “victimless crime” stick is nonsense. Because if all the real estate world is lied together like this, the general population pays waaayyyy to much for their real estate and rent in addition to missing out on so much tax revenue.
It’s fraud. When money changed hands under false pretenses, harm’s been done. Somebody’s missing money that’s rightfully theirs.
I don’t know anything about this case. Didn’t know there was real estate stuff involved I thought this was the secret documents thing.
But that’s straightforward. Taking money that isn’t rightfully yours is not a victimless crime, in the way that owning pot is a victimless crime.
Agreed. This was the civil fraud trial, where trump and co where found liable of: fraudulently adjusting the evaluation of their holdings based on the audience. So for the IRS the valuation was low and for lenders it was high.
But in the case where banks are the victims I have trouble feeling for them.
But the appeal is what establishes if that is actually the case.
Think of it this way; someone gets the electric chair for a crime, but the appeal proves they were actually innocent. Can’t exactly unkill them can you? So you hold off the execution until after the appeals are exhausted (corporal punishment shouldn’t exist at all, for the record, I’m just using this as an easy way to illustrate my point).
I guess then why is this currently the law? If we give him this exception then remove the need for bond for everyone. Otherwise it’s just the poor that get fucked once again.
The only semi good thing we have is that he’s old. He’s clearly losing his shit, and broke. It won’t be long before he’s either six feet under from a McHeartattack or laying in a bed not able to recognize his own family. I hope it’s long and painful.
I hope it quick and soon.
I’m sick of playing this game. He is a clear threat to democracy and America itself.
His speeches are becoming completely unhinged, and there are a lot of times he starts turning red in the face from a combination of massive doses of adderral and high blood pressure.
He probably gets daily injections of Wegovy and Statins at this point, no idea how he keeps going.
Then the court will lower it again for him.
“That’ll be $3.50.”
God damnit Loch Ness monster!
“Well it was about this time I noticed that this girl scout was about 8 stories tall and was a crustacean from the protozoic era!”
“WITCH HUNT! SO UNFAIR!”
I think once they’ve done it the first time this outcome is pretty much inevitable. The sad thing is that they only have to do it once before it becomes expected of them by Trump’s party. To them it’s vindication that the system is just out to get them when they say, “We could have charged you what you actually owe but we can also lower it for no reason instead of throwing you in jail”
Don’t get your hopes up. This guy wriggles through everything. He knows who to buy.
Great, sound like it won’t hurt to raise it back to the $454 mil it should be at.
But he’s rich, worth billions, and he’s the perfect kind of criminal to bond why would he have issues?
If life has taught Trump anything, it’s that he never has to pay.
One day I hope to be as broke as Donald Trump; where nearly 200 million dollars “might” be unobtainable.
We’re all very much hoping so.
Guess we gotta shop around for another judge to lower it further.
His net worth just hit $6B due to the pump & dump scheme that is Truth Social.
None of that is liquid though. He’s locked into the holdings for six months while the stock freefalls from the IPO. If the majority stockholder is going to be selling shares during the initial offering you bet your panties that has to be disclosed.
Unless he gets an exception from the board. Guess which Trump offspring are on the board
Not the board, it has to be part of a regulatory filing and disclosed to potential stock purchasers.
The board has to approve it first, the regulatory filing and disclosure are proforma
But can’t he just get a loan for the stock and skip the 6 months AND skip paying taxes too?
No, the same agreement that prevents selling shares also prevents using them as collateral.
So basically he is trying to delay until that day. Got it. Thank you for the info. I didn’t know.
Would you accept that toilet paper as collateral?
Remember the judgement he’s fighting was for overvaluing assets. So you are going to take stock in a company that lost 28 million dollars on only 3 million of revenue, and believe that it’s worth 500 million six months from now when it can finally be sold?
Also I think assets need to unencumbered to be pledged and the stock is encumbered.
He’s gonna have the money even if he’s cash-poor: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/billionaires-sought-help-fund-trump-bond-civil-fraud-case-sources-say-2024-03-26/
Here’s how I’d see it if I was a billionaire.
You have a chance to throw a few million dollars of chump change to you to get in good with who might be the first fascist dictator of the United States. Then that man owes you a favour, or at least you are on his good side. Seems like a no brainer.
You literally need to have no brain to think Donald will honor a debt or a favor.
If Trump himself has taught us anything its that just because someones wealthy doesn’t mean they’re intelligent, or even average.
Then that man owes you a favour, or at least you are on his good side.
Trump often doesn’t abide by anything. Doesn’t pay contractors for example. Just takes, doesn’t give. Loads of lawyers did favours for Trump, loads of those lawyers cannot practice anymore. It doesn’t sound like a good idea to me to hope that Trump might return a favour.
Relatable
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“Let’s do whatever we can, to stop this man from becoming President.” Sincerely, Democrats.
Are we accusing the Democrats of forcing him to commit fraud or…?
91 Felonies isn’t enough for you? Be honest, you’d love it if he grabbed you by the pussy wouldn’t you? How about your daughter? Wife? Oh geez, what am I thinking, you’d be on your knees with his cheeto mushroom in your mouth while he did it begging for more.
Fucking clowns you all are. Magats.
Um, duh? I don’t like Biden either but nothing the Republicans are offering (or have offered in 50 years) is good for real people. I wouldn’t want Trump as a neighbor, coworker, or wasting oxygen on any planet humans live on, let alone wanting it in charge of anything.
