Letitia James gets bad news hidden in Donald Trump's bond

DevCat@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 118 points –
Letitia James gets bad news hidden in Donald Trump's bond
newsweek.com

One line buried in the agreement may be cause for concern for James, according to a new report from The Daily Beast, which described the contact as "bizarre" and "shadier than it looks."

The contract includes a line that if the judgment is "affirmed" or the "appeal is dismissed," the defendants in the case "shall pay to Plaintiff...the sum directed to be paid by the Judgment plus interests and costs or any part of it as to which said Judgment is affirmed," without a guarantee the insurance company would pay.

This essentially means that Trump will be required to pay the judgment if he loses the appeal but leaves questions about whether the insurance would pay if he is unable, essentially leaving James in the same position as before Trump secured the bond, according to the report.

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Looks like a good reason to reject the bond in its entirety. It's obviously a bad faith attempt to get around the rules.

Yeah, I’m not sure how this is bad news for anyone but Trump.

It's bad news for everyone because he's still getting away with it. Justice delayed is justice denied. James should be two weeks into the process of seizing his assets.

The court rejected the bond. How did he get away with it?

Have his assets been seized? Is he in prison? Is he not the GOP frontrunner and leading Biden in electoral college polling?

In the time between comments, he just had a third attempt to delay his criminal trial: Link

Things may not move as fast as you want, but they’re moving.

Edit: when he posted that BS bond, James immediately filed to oppose it, requiring Trump to explain/back it up, or it would be rejected and she can start seizing assets. Trump’s legal team has 10 days to legitimize the bond, or they’re fucked. (Spoilers: they can’t)

There is procedure. Trump can try to delay, but now he’s reached the end of the line here, too.

That's also good news, but he's still not in prison, he's still the frontrunner to be President again, and he still has his empire.

His ability to manipulate and stall the legal system, the same system that grinds poor people up and turns them into slaves and recidivists, is horrifying.

His criminal trial is proceeding April 15th. He hasn’t been able to delay that.

He has been able to delay it, he just wasn't successful in his latest attempt to delay the trial. He will try again. The trial is for crimes he committed before he was elected President more than 8 years ago, crimes for which his conspirator, Michael Cohen, has already been convicted and served his full sentence.

It's good that the trial is about to start, in the same way that it's good when a serial killer stops stabbing their latest victim.

This is definitely a moment to show some chill my dude.

Fuck chill. Chill is how we end up electing fascists. They will apply constant, unyielding pressure to achieve political dominance, and it requires equal devotion and vigilance to prevent it.

And yelling at people on Lemmy will totally fix it. This has nothing to do with politics, this is all about your emotional disregulation.

Cardinal sin #192737: Disgnosing other lemmings' mental health because their comments annoyed you

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Am I reading this correctly? Is this article claiming it’s bad for James and her case if Trump can’t pay?

If he can’t pay doesn’t it just go back to being as if he never got the bond in the first place? So, she can just go after his assets?

Why is this bad? Did I miss something or is this the weakest motherfucking spin I’ve ever read?

It's bad because if he cannot pay at all, then he cannot appeal.

The idea is that you aren't able to use the appeals process as a stalling tactic, so in order to appeal, you must either set aside the money or secure a bond for the amount.

Trump has done neither. His "bond" isn't a bond at all, because the contract states that the insurer will not be responsible for the judgement amount. His application to appeal should be rejected.

It's bad because if he cannot pay at all, then he cannot appeal.

This is patently false. He does NOT need to post a bond in order to appeal. He can absolutely appeal without posting a bond. The only purpose of the bond is to stay enforcement on the judgment.

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It would be bad for James in that an insurance company isn't going to pay $175m if the judgment is affirmed or the appeal dismissed. It's obviously much easier to cash a check from an insurance company than it is to find assets, domesticate a judgment, and then to levy and sell those assets.

That’s not bad for James if she can just argue to the court that this bond is blatantly invalid.

That’s not bad for James if she can just argue to the court that this bond is blatantly invalid.

Between Knight not being approved in NY, not having adequate cash reserves, and writing a bond that just says Trump will pay, I don't think that should be a problem.

That being said, I would still prefer having a valid bond posted. Turning a judgment into liquid assets is not easy, and can be very time consuming.

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Yep we already knew this a few days ago. This article just reframed it in the title as a positive for Trump. In all likelihood he's probably going to have to liquefy assets now.

This article just reframed it in the title as a positive for Trump

It's Newsweek. So...very much hot garbage yet the site gets referenced here several times a week. Can we please ban the site?

Yeah it’s really a shame what they’ve become.

Is there a summary here? I thought they had a reputable brand and must've missed when it turned to shit/why it turned to shit. Have seen several dragging them recently.

The whole idea of the bond is that it covered the full amount of the judgment and is held in escrow, and would be turned over to the state when Trump loses his appeal. And it's up to the bond issuer to make sure they have collateral enough from Trump to cover that bond (and full judgement ) should they need to pay up.

The bond issuer not having the collateral to even cover the $175m, let alone the nearly $500m that would be due if he loses his appeal is the whole issue James raised with this bond to begin with (well and the fact that they didn't have the right certification to even issue a bond in NY).

EDIT - extra words 😩

Bad news for James? If anything this makes it look like Trump/his lawyers/bonding co tried to commmit a fraud on the court by trying to slip in terms that actualy negate the whole purpose of a bond.

Let's look more at the bond has been rejected and Knight didn't even include financials. He has until Monday or James goes shopping in Trumpworld with a $175 million dollar kitty.