Brother, can you spare 4.64 billion dimes?
or why 1.75 billion dimes is not a win for Trump
Donald Trump crowed on Monday about winning a reprieve from the New York State Court of Appeals for Manhattan to avoid having to pay $464 million in fines and interest following in his business fraud case before Judge Arthur Engoron. That avoidance is only pending appeal.
After admitting he had gone to 30 plus bonding companies, who all said the the same thing in refusing to put up the money for him; Trump basically admitted that his subjective valuation of assets was not going to convince anyone to “lend” him the entirety of the fines and interest while he appeals what most legal experts say is a fairly unappealable decision and order.
The New York Court of Appeals did him a nothing-burger favor though. It discounted what he needed to pay — from $464 million to a “mere” $175 million and granted him 10 days to post those funds. Trump celebrated by bragging he had won, posted a lot of deplorable things about Judge Engoron, NY AG Letitia James, and continued his relentless attack on the NY legal system via Truth Social.
A few problems for Trump in all that:
One, he’s got to get a $175 million bond or produce that amount in cash. Trump has a long history of not paying what he can have someone else pay for him. Once again, we will see Trump forgo equity for cash flow — which is the bottom feeder of financial success and business acumen. For his sake, he had better have one of those 30 bonding companies ready to put up the $175 million lest he look even less business savvy than he does now.
Two, the timeline here is 10 days. That’s April 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th depending of what days do or don’t count (i.e. the 8th is definitely the 10th business day but the 4th is 10 days from March 25th when the order was entered). To post it at the 11th hour or to whine to the NY Court of Appeals more time is needed is not going to go over very well.
Three, what the Left, most commentators, and the public in general seems to forget is the Barbara Jones problem. By problem, I mean that retired federal judge Barbara Jones is the special master appointed by Judge Engoron to supervive the finances and administrative oversight of Trump’s corporate empire. On March 21, 2024, Judge Engoron entered an order giving Jones enhanced and more extensive power over Trump’s business empire.1
Copy and save that order in case you run into the Donald — it’s a stark reminder of the importance of winning the war not the battle. And this battle is a skirmish at best. Trump is going to lose this case on appeal — and with that all his stuff. It doesn’t matter whether an insurer takes takes 37% of it from New York State after the fact.
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fbem/DocumentDisplayServlet?documentId=5l1P7uiZM2RpQC_PLUS_V9kU7_PLUS_w==&system=prod