Donald Trump laps the Republican field and leads Joe Biden, but the judiciary is unimpressed. Since Tuesday, the 45th president went zero-for-three in New York and DC courtrooms. After all the smoke cleared, his financial assets and personal freedom remain in jeopardy.
On Monday, his latest trial begins in Manhattan. He and his adult sons face civil fraud charges. Last Tuesday a New York trial judge found that Trump had defrauded his lenders and insurers. In hindsight, The Art of the Deal bordered on the art of the steal.
Earlier in the week, Arthur F Engoron, a state trial judge, reviewed the evidence and determined that Trump had committed fraud. Engoron held that the annual financial statements that Trump had submitted to lenders and insurers “clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business”.
As a real estate developer, Trump both overvalued and undervalued assets when it suited him, according to the court. He exaggerated his net worth to the tune of billions of dollars. In hindsight, the students at Trump University were not alone. All were fair game in Trump’s eyes.
In his decision, Engoron essentially determined that no further trial was needed to ascertain that Trump had illicitly obtained favorable terms on his company’s loans and insurance. “The documents here clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business, satisfying [the attorney general’s] burden to establish liability as a matter of law against defendants,” Engoron wrote in a 35-page decision.
“The documents do not say what they say; that there is no such thing as ‘objective’ value … ” the judge wrote, characterizing Trump’s arguments. “Essentially, the court should not believe its own eyes.” That did not happen.
The decision could ultimately cost Trump his brand. Business certificates of the Trump Organization and other Trump subsidiaries will be cancelled, ditto certificates of companies owned by Trump and his two older sons. In addition, defendants could face up to $250m in penalties.
The Trumps aren’t known for their liquidity. Bankruptcies dot their companies’ landscapes.
In July 2016, the Guardian reported that a statement filed to the Securities and Exchange Commission by Wells Fargo Securities on Trump’s behalf in 2012 indicated that the real estate developer was then worth roughly only $4.2bn with comparatively few liquid assets, pegged at more than $250m.
To be sure, that is a lot of money, but a bit on the low side given Trump’s present legal crush. Indeed, in a lawsuit Trump brought against the journalist Tim O’Brien for raising the possibility that he was not a billionaire, Trump acknowledged that his asset valuations were not objective measures.
“You said that the net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings?” Trump was asked in a deposition.
“Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day,” he replied.
On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump has touted a net worth north of $10bn.
Still, Tuesday’s ruling wasn’t the final word. Things grew worse on Thursday when an intermediate appellate court refused to bar the case from proceeding to trial. “It is ordered that the motion for a stay of trial is denied,” the order read.
One day earlier, Tanya Chutkan, the judge presiding over the special counsel’s election interference case, had refused to disqualify herself. The basis of that unsuccessful motion was Team Trump elevating Chutkan’s characterization of positions taken in separate January 6 cases as her own views.
“The court has never taken the position the defense ascribes to it, that former ‘President Trump should be prosecuted and imprisoned,’” Chutkan stated.
It is unlikely that any of these developments will impact Republican primary voters or the Republican field. Since Trump was first indicted in late March, his popularity among Republicans has only grown. At the same time, his leading rivals won’t raise his legal woes as an issue. They know the base wouldn’t stand for it.
Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy have internalized that the Republican party’s machinery belongs to Trump. When news broke in March of Trump’s indictment, Florida’s governor reflexively rushed to his defense. In the moment, he accused Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s district attorney, of pushing an “un-American” political “agenda”.
DeSantis also stood ready to fight Trump’s extradition to New York, a meaningless gesture. Trump voluntarily surrendered days later.
These days, there is nothing they can do other than bleat like sheep and wait. Even Brian Kemp, Georgia’s governor and Trump nemesis, knows the score. He pledged to back Trump if he is the Republican nominee. The self-abasement continues.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
