Donald Trump was supposed to have to post a $464 million bond by Monday or else the state of New York could begin collecting on the massive civil fraud judgment leveled against him earlier this year. An appeals court bailed him out, blocking collection of the judgment and giving the former president 10 days to post a drastically reduced $175 million bond.
The order is a huge win for Trump, whose assets were going to be subject to seizure if he couldn’t post nearly half-a-billion dollars by Monday. His lawyers said last week he wasn’t going to be able to come up with the money after 30 underwriters rejected him. The New York Times has reported that Trump is expected to be able to scrounge the new, reduced $175 million bond
This sucks, but a few points are at least worth mentioning:
Of the five judges listed on the order, annoyingly slim as it is, three are Democrats and two are “nonpartisan” but with resumes in the public sector and public interest law.
Most states actually have a cap on appeal bonds, often around $50 million or less. NY doesn’t have one, but all the same thinking, for good or for ill, that would lead to a statutory limit might influence the appeals court here. Among them is precluding additional litigation from forcing a fire sale.
In an appeal like this, the court has to at least conceptually imagine that there’s some possibility of success, and that with a defendant who is leveraged AF and not nearly as liquid as he boasts, there is only one bite at the apple when seizing and selling the assets to satisfy the judgment. If the court is convinced that this amount, well into nine figures, will occupy the vast majority of his liquid assets and insure some plausible compensation for the plaintiff, and the other assets aren’t going anywhere, then it’s not insane to demand a bond more in line with the available liquidity.
Trump is definitely getting the “rich business owner with lots of lawyers” treatment here, and that’s certainly something you could criticize about the American legal system, but I don’t think we’re seeing some completely inexplicable abuse of existing civil procedure. The orange turd still gets the due process that a President Turd would deny to so many others.
TL;DR: it’s possible the only thing the Appeals Court is saying is that ol’ Donny really can’t get the bigger bond and that Trump Tower will still be there to seize later.
I heartily disagree on these limits being to prevent a fire sale. They’re to protect the wealthy from a fire sale. You or I would be forced into a fire sale in a heartbeat for a million dollar judgement. And then into debtor’s prison when we turn out to be normal people who don’t have a million dollars of assets lying around.
I can’t say I’m surprised by this, and while I hate Trump, it’s not for the cynical reason. It’s going to be quite the nightmare unwinding those transactions. My understanding is that NY doesn’t have a right of redemption after a Sheriff’s sale. While this is judicious, I would prefer Trump be given no quarter.
And this is why I love Lemmy. Where else would you get a well reasoned explanation like this?
Five comments down, maybe, but I’ll take what we can get.