'A lot of money': Trump owes $87K in interest per day until he pays the fine in his civil fraud case
Former President Donald Trump owes an additional $87,502 in post-judgment interest every day until he pays the $354 million fine ordered by Judge Arthur Engoron in his civil fraud case, according to ABC News' calculations based on the judge's lengthy ruling in the case.
Judge Engoron on Friday fined Trump $354 million plus approximately $100 million in pre-judgment interest in the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, after he found that Trump and his adult sons had inflated Trump's net worth in order to get more favorable loan terms. The former president has denied all wrongdoing and has said he will appeal.
Engoron ordered Trump to pay pre-judgment interest on each ill-gotten gain -- with interest accruing based on the date of each transaction -- as well as a 9% post-judgment interest rate once the court enters the judgment in the case.
Yeah, thats the part that is dangerous, I am telling you as a real estate person, he did nothing wrong, and there is not victim in the real estate case, but the person that decided he was guilty believes something wrong or is doing it for bad reasons. Do you understand the danger there?
I'm kind of astonished.
I'm telling you as an accounting person, fraudulent misrepresentation of one financial circumstances is an egregious crime.
This whole "victimless crime" thing is incredibly naive.
Cool, who was the victim? How were they victimized?
As you well know, there is no victim, as in no single person who was harmed. Yet Trump's actions are a crime nonetheless. The whole victimless crime angle is a derivative of a straw man fallacy.
As a society we prescribe a minimum acceptable level of behaviour through laws. When people contravene these laws we impose penalties. There is no requirement for someone to be harmed.
That said, I'm sure you can imagine what would happen if fraud was not a crime. It's just not possible to conduct business of any kind if there is no penalty for fraud.
The apologists are out and about it seems. The rich sycophants I get, wanting lower taxes and all. What I'll never get is being middle or lower class and being so cucked as to defend some bourgeois criminal like he was a friend.
"Temporarily embarrassed millionaires".
My parents are broke. They will always vote conservative despite the benefits going to the wealthy, because they feel like they ought to be wealthy.
There was no victim because he did nothing wrong. Should a person be able to list their house for more than its true value, have someone agree to the price and then apply for a loan?
Of course not.
Should a company be allowed to make up the numbers shown on its financial reports?
No, but that is not what happened. Do you actually understand what they did that was so wrong?
That's exactly what happened.
What specifically do you think they falsified?
The purported "fair value" of a range of assets supporting Trump's net worth.
Was the bank not able to do their own assessment of the value of the property? Was the bank upset with the outcome?
They could have and no they weren't.
However, as you well know, that's not how fraud works. They lied in order to obtain a benefit. That's fraud. They got caught, they're being penalised.
The judgement does kind of address your attitude:
You're an engineer right? Imagine building a bridge with degraded steel, then on being discovered your defence is simply that the bridge hasn't fallen down and everyone using it has been happy enough.
As you can imagine, enforcing standards serves bridge users everywhere.
On each page of the document there was a disclaimer that the loan company do its own due diligence, and that is what they do in underwriting. I sell mainly houses, but the one time a sold a commerical building worth like $750k (I dont recall the actual number), I had to give them SO many documents it was annoying. Why would they not do this for something for tens of millions of dollars?
Let me come at this from a different angle. There was no actual victim, people like Kevin O leary, me, and probably half of people dont think he did a thing wrong. What justifies a $400 million or so penalty? Can you see how they are targeting him and trying to make him go bankrupt?
Engineers are not all the type of engineers that work on structures, but I understand what you are saying.