Stripped of just about everything
On a different note – apparently Trump is done.
Donald Trump is no longer in business.
Worse, the self-proclaimed multibillionaire may soon be personally bankrupt as a result, stripped of just about everything because for years he engaged in calculated bank fraud and insurance fraud by inflating the value of his properties, a judge ruled Tuesday.
His gaudy Trump Tower apartment, his golf courses, his Boeing 757 jet and even Mar-a-Lago could all be disposed of by a court-appointed monitor, leaving Trump with not much more than his pensions as a one term president and a television performer.
It’s because of all those business licenses being cancelled.
Five Trump lawyers were each fined $7,500 for making “frivolous” arguments.
A judge calling a lawyer’s argument “frivolous” is the equivalent of saying it is no better than nonsense from a drunk in a bar, as I teach my Syracuse University College of Law students.
Those lawyers may well find it wise to hire their own lawyers as Judge Engoron’s findings could form the basis of disbarment proceedings, something already underway against Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, the former federal prosecutor, and John Eastman, a former dean of the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif.
Without frivolous arguments, what does Trump have? Not a damn thing.
A non-jury trial before Judge Engoron next week will determine how much Trump will be fined for his years of bank fraud and insurance fraud.
Barring a highly unlikely reversal by an appeals court, Trump’s business assets eventually will be liquidated since he cannot operate them without a business license. Retired Judge Barbara Jones was appointed to monitor the assets, an arrangement not unlike the court-supervised liquidation of a bankrupt company or the assets of a drug lord.
Creditors, any fines due the state because of the fraud, and taxes will be paid first from sales of Trump properties.
The various properties are likely to be sold at fire sale prices and certainly not for top dollar when liquidation begins, probably after all appeals are exhausted.
Among these properties is the portion of Trump Tower that Trump still owns and leases to businesses as office and retail space; his own triplex apartment there; his golf courses; and Mar-a-Lago, the Florida mansion he bought in a corrupt mortgage deal decades ago. He also has deals to license his name on buildings and businesses, which similarly he can no longer operate and whose profits he must give up.
I look forward to watching it happen.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow.
I hope judgment creditors like E. Jean Carroll get paid. We could find out, though, that DJT lied about his wealth, as well as about everything else, and that his inflated claims are hollow lies.
The ironic thing is that he could have avoided this by not running for, and winning, the presidency. He had so many lawsuits that he just sailed through in the past…he would have remained the same blustering bully with his properties intact. Being president, and corrupt, gave people new cause to look at his business dealings.
And he stiffed so many people, I imagine there were plenty ready to testify against him.
Does this mean that all those folk he’s stiffed over the years can come forward and have some hope of getting their money from a possibly sympathetic monitor?
I think it might.
But if he loses Trump Force One, how’s he supposed to pretend he’s still the prez?
The screaming will be amazing. I will enjoy every shred of rage.
I’m a little skeptical of some of the claims about the implications of this ruling. As far as I understand it, this is not a forfeiture case. The Trump Organization may not be able to continue to do business in NY and has to divest itself of assets, but I’m not sure what stops Trump from setting up MAGA Enterprises, LLC, or Covfefe, Inc. in Florida or some other state, and purchasing any assets he wants to keep.
Or, if he and his family members can’t be involved in any entity doing business in NY, then I’m sure some friendly Saudi Arabian company will be happy to purchase those assets at a generous price.
I would be very skeptical of that statement in the linked article about “fire sale prices.” It’s true that a court-ordered sale usually can’t expect to get as much as one where the seller is able to walk away, but whoever is supervising that sale still has a duty to get a fair price.
This is a pretty embarrassing thing (or would be for someone capable of shame), and ought to be a political career-ended (about the 7,623rd so far), etc. And no doubt it will piss off Trump, who has wanted to be a big shot in Manhattan and not just Donnie from Queens.
But Trump is going to be flying on private planes and living in tasteless gold-decorated homes for some time yet.
What would a Saudi Arabian company want to buy the assets for though? What can he give them? If he gets elected again then I see why they would, but how is he useful to them now?
If nothing else Ophelia, they’d be buying prime NY realestate including apartment buildings and golf resorts. I don’t think the Saudi’s will be put off by the tasteless use of gold plate since that seems to be their speed as well.
I’d love to dream that this would leave Trump and his family with just ordinary wealth, but I haven’t been able to follow that reasoning at all.
Mark-to-market
It’s a bit of a Wile E. Coyote moment.
Trump has been living off of the inflated values of his assets–both actual bank loans against those assets and the desires of others to do business with/grease the palm of an apparent multi-billionaire.
Sell everything at fair market value (i.e. what someone will pay for it); pay the taxes; pay the creditors–there may not be much left. And what is left isn’t some bigly tower that Trump can say is worth whatever he wants. What is left is a final disbursement of $xxxx.xx from the court to Trump: dollars and cents; no wiggle room on the amount. It really punctures the balloon.
That sounds more cheerful!