1y ago

'A lot of money': Trump owes $87K in interest per day until he pays the fine in his civil fraud case

abcnews.go.com

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.

308 comments

Thats hilarious. Wake me up when he actually pays the $300 bajillion dollars.
- To be fair, Letitia James is now saying she is going to try to seize his assets if he doesn't pay up.
  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/21/letitia-james-trump-assets-seizure-buildings
  
  I hope she is able to do so. It’s pretty clear that TFG will not willingly pay any amount of money.
  
  Oh my god... Does that mean.... that.....
  .... Something might actually HAPPEN?
  
  amazing
  
  Imagine having been president and contemplating bankruptcy to nullify the case/repayment
  (I'm just thinking aloud, hypothetical situation... but lol)
  
  Seizing his gold toilet would be appropriate, since his finances would be in the crapper at that point.
- He won't. His estate will be seized and liquidated and it won't even begin to cover the fine, because the value of everything he owns is criminally overinflated.
  
  I guess they will have to take his golden slippers.
  
  He's about to get a huge paper wealth injection with his truth social thing about to go public. Usually you've got to prove certain arduous financial metrics to do that, but the SEC is all, "lulz, you're fine. Go ahead and offer your worthless stock!"
  I'll be curious to see who the biggest "investors" are in that stock. This is set up to be one helluva laundry.
  
  because the value of everything he owns is criminally overinflated
  You say that now, but just wait until the cult starts collecting money to pay those overinflated prices for their lord and savior...
- I once typed in the wrong number in my electric bill and got my lights shut off. It was like 10 dollars. Somehow when you're rich enough you can just choose to pay things or not.
  
  Wow. That's shit. And if it happened in US, then it is unlikely to be illegal like in the rest of the world.
- Other people who will pay for this instead of donating to the RNC. Still a win.
My entire mortgage is his fucking interest payment, but if I stop paying the fractional payments on it -- which this asshole spends in a day on overcooked steaks and too-long ties -- they'd take my house. Start fucking taking his stuff, goddammit.
$10k would entirely change my life. That's it, that's all I'd need.
I could pay off my debt, then I'd be able to afford a roof over my head.
- Fucking seriously... There is so much money in these asshats hands that he's dealing with daily interest that amounts to 1.5x my YEARLY income...
  
  the highest salary I've ever seen on a tech job posting was 900K, offered by Netflix for a networking god.
  Even that guy would be broke by lunch on day 11.
  A person so singularly gifted that one of the highest paying companies on the planet had to offer that just to find them, and this fucking bag of sewer gas has that in his coat he hasn't worn since the 80's. Really makes it easy to justify hating these absolute parasites that contribute nothing and own everything.
  
  Visualisation of vast wealth - https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/?v=3
- Sadly a majority of Americans would find 10k quite liberating and it would be a big help.
  
  Given most Americans can't handle a $1,000 Emergency. Yes $10k would change many lives
  https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4428193-most-americans-cant-afford-1000-emergency-survey/
  
  I make plenty of money, but the dumb decisions in my past among other things made it so it's always going to debt, but I can't climb out of it because of interest, and now that I've lost my home (staying with in laws now), my wife spends insane money on door dash, and I can't get it through her head how expensive and unhealthy it is, and if she really wants fast food, I can go get it. I will literally cook an entire meal, plate it, then hear the doorbell for door dash.
  It's so frustrating and it feels never ending.
That's only 220 pairs of sneakers a day
This could really hurt his other legal cases. Lawyers will be less enthused to represent him if he might go bankrupt on them and not pay the bill.
And they will be more likely to demand retainer at onset. One recently demanded $3M retainer before starting.
- Unfortunately, there are always more lawyers stupid enough to work for him and assume they'll get paid. I think the quality on average just gradually goes down.
  
  Which is doing him unfavors. Appealing this is going to be really hard because Habba didn't lodge any objections to any of the evidence, cutting down grounds for appeal.
  
  They are getting paid via "exposure"
  
  I'm not sure how the quality can possibly go any lower
- His lawyers have already been quitting left and right. His lead counsel in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case withdrew in January, leaving Alina Habba, who has very little trial experience, to handle the damages portion of the case. Her inexperience got her in a lot of trouble with the judge. She kept violating basic trial etiquette and trying to argue facts of the case that had already been established (remember, Trump had already been found liable and they were just supposed to be arguing the amount of harm to establish damages).
- Lawyers will be less enthused to represent him if he might go bankrupt on them and not pay the bill.
  He wasn't going to pay them anyway.
Can we please get a 90 day cap at which point straight to jail?
- This is a civil trial. He won’t go to jail, they’ll just start seizing his assets.
  
  I’ll take that too. Looking forward to seizures. Concerned it’ll just never happen :/
  Alex Jones still hasn’t paid shit.
  
  Seize building
  Search building
  Find more classified documents
  I bet you could even strategically seize ones you suspected might have compromising things?
  
  I wish they'd start with his headets.
Does anyone actually believe he's going to pay any of this? I highly doubt it.
- If he doesn't, the state has the authority to sell off his assets to recoup the money.
  He might not have much cash, but New York real estate isn't cheap.
- has that bag of shit Alex Jones paid a fucking dime yet?
  
  Not yet but his creditors voted to liquidate his assets yesterday (?). The gears are slowly grinding.
  
  It's still being drug out. He's lost the case, but tried to hide his assets so that he could declare bankruptcy without actually being bankrupt. The current legal fight is basically to show that he's being a greedy cunt and to force him to sell the assets he has tried to hide.
  They have him dead to rights though. He can drag it out, maybe even for several more years, but they will get their pound of flesh.
  
  why would you compare that grifter with this basically identical grifter
  
  Jones isn't really analogous.
  Trump won't declare bankruptcy.
- That's fine. He has a lot of properties tha they can -and will- take. He can still appeal, but that might make it even worse, and in the mean time interest is running.
  
  I believe to appeal he first has to put 110% of the amount owing in escrow
  
  If there's one thing I've learned about Trump over the past decade, it is that he always finds a way to weasel out and somehow manage to get millions of conservative votes in the process.
- They've already said they'll seize his ny assets if he refuses to pay.
That's only $32M per year, seems like not much of a penalty compared to what he's not paying.
- A life-ruining amount of daily interest for a normal person is even a blip for a fake, likely broke billionaire.
  
  Until he goes to jail, that interest and that fine isn't going to matter to him. He can just ride it out until he's dead.
  They need to give him a maximum of 4 months to pay it off or he goes to prison.
  Maybe he'll get Epstiened in there and we can be rid of him for good.
  
  He's not broke, but he's also not as wealthy as he claims. The wealth he does have is all tied up in real estate assets, which again aren't worth as much as he likes to claim. That's what this whole case was about.
I can't imagine 87k per day.
Can I get this in a better metric like number of trump jumps per mooch?
- 87 cofefes per hectamooch.
  
  Ahah you misspleeled it
- That’s more than I make in 3 years. In one day. But anyone thinking he’s going to pay anything should go buy a bridge. This is America, people. The most corrupt place on earth.
  Criminals run the country, and criminals protect each other.
- I'd give up my avocado toast AND soy frappucinos for that kind of money.
- At least 5 Hamberders
Don't worry guys. His supporters will give him money. I hope anyone with trumpy parents is cool with not getting any inheritance.
- His fundraising has kind of fallen off, I understand the donations aren't keeping up with all this money going out. It's hysterical honestly, dude is prob going to die a pauper and ruin his entire legacy which honestly he deserves after what he did to this country.
  
  Woe to the person who is going to have to scrub the shit and piss off that gravesite.
- Jokes on you, i already wasn't getting an inheritance
- So you are saying they are now taxing stupid?
I love that for him.
I wonder if this will just be another OJ Simpson situation where he owes money but fucks around paying it and the courts never enforce the ruling.
Will this ruling prevent him in any way from taking public office?
- That's $87 000 per day that's not being spent on campaign advertising and RNC activities, so it may be effectively stopping him get elected in a sense.
  
  It would be worth more than that to people who want to get him elected, and he probably has friends in russia who are willing to spend much more than that on campaign advertising on his behalf.
- Nah, it's another one of those "there's no laws about this because we assumed no one would elect an overtly corrupt grifter" type situations.
- Nope.
  In a well ordered world it should, but apparently he can even run if he's in prison...
- How do you think it plays out if they are successful in their attempts to get trump not to be able to run for election?
  
  What are you talking about. This is a due justice process, with a sentencing. I was just curious if such a sentencing would prevent taking public office.
  
  Nikki Haley runs instead?
- No, it's not the one about the 14th amendment. You know this.
  
  Not everyone knows the difference. Or they could be asking if the financial impact could disable him from running.
Will his GoFundMe keep up with the interest rates? How many Mooches will the rubes last?
- A Mooch becoming a unit of time and Sean Spicer hiding in the bushes were the best part of his presidency
- Less than one. They’re already broke paying his lawyers and, like, voting for corporations and shit.
- I believe it's currently in excess of the interest. I don't expect it to stay that way.
Will Papa Putin help him out with this?
- Absolutely. Putin is said to be a trillionaire. The difference between Trump's net worth and Putin's is "about a trillion". Putin is just going to purchase the US by bankrolling Trump and the Republican party.
  
  Net worth ≠ liquid cash. Just like Elon Musk never has the cash for the shit he says he’s going to buy. Putin is not some 4D chess player.
NARRATOR: He never paid it.
- Why should he, when he constantly tries (and somewhat succeed) to find other people that are paying for him?
- Pretty sure that rat will figure it out.
That’s a lot of shoes.
- Reading up on them, apparently they made 1000, 10 signed by el cheeto himself, and they were priced at $400. So even assuming he makes 100% of that as profit (which he might if the manufacturer didn't insist he pay up front for them), that's still less than a business week worth of interest. Though the price of those 10 signed could add another day or two, depending on how ridiculous he went with the price.
Damn that's like 5 seconds or almost a full American of debt a day https://www.usdebtclock.org/
When the fuck was the last time you got an interest rate of less than 1%? Look at that shit, that's barely a million over the year, like 0.03%.
Going down in $87k flames is nice, but i'd be happier if it were bigger, that's what I'm saying.
- It's a 9% interest rate according to the article.
  EDIT, and your math is way off:
  $87,000 x 365 = $31,755,000
  $31,755,000 / $355,000,000 = 8.95%
- $87K x 365 is almost $32M.
  
  =/= Enough
- dumpster fire?
  hmm and more.
  Let's see America doesn't have much IN Country FIGHTING unlike other countries ie: Europe, Russia, Iran, Iraq,etc
  figure it out before blasting it out and making yourself Ugly
  
  simple mind indeed! but i did think better of that line and removed it, and now your comment doesn't make any sense in addition to being flag-waving jackoffery.
Good. Grab em by the property. They let you do it, y'know, if you're AG.
https://youtu.be/TcpHOpPzgOk?si=dpke1i9NKAQqbOTo
Because these sorts of things never get stayed while appeals are conducted.
- Doesn't he need to put up the money in order to appeal?
  
  yes. in order to appeal this judgement, Trump would have to put up between 120-125% of the $355M judgement (to cover the judgement + interest) in order to file an appeal. He can do this in cash, or he can secure a bond by leveraging his assets as collateral. It's unclear whether he has that much liquid cash, and it's unlikely that anyone would be willing to issue a bond for him, especially since any of his assets he might use are marked for asset forfeiture by the State of New York should his appeal fail, as it most assuredly will.
  FTA:
  Trump will continue to accrue interest on the fine during his lengthy appeal of Engoron's ruling, unless he deposits the full amount of the fine into an escrow account, according to Thomas.
  While Trump's appeal will prompt an automatic stay of the enforcement of Engoron's ruling, Trump needs to first put money into an escrow account or post a bond in order to appeal.
  If Trump decides to post a bond to cover the fine during his appeal, the interest will continue to accrue during his appeal, adding potentially tens of millions of dollars in the process.
  (emphasis added)
  
  No. Even says something to that effect that at the end of this article. This whole thing isn't surviving appeals anyways. Absolute shrill hyperbole over interest rates on loans, not even whether or not he'd have received the loan, but on interest rates. Value of properties is debatable....I remember when I last filled out a mortgage application and valued my possessions, valued my old bike at 5000. The loan officer erased that and wrote in 20 thou. This judge would have called that fraud, but the value really was debatable, I paid 4500 for the bike in a different province a couple years before, meanwhile people were asking 18-20k for them on the local internet sites.
Yeah.. right... When's the last time that actually happened? Not even a Trump jab... Fuck politics.
- I'll be back in a few months when something happens
Everyone ITT: "unreasonable and excessive punishment is great as long as it happens to someone I hate"
- What’s unreasonable and excessive about any of this?
  
  Because he did nothing wrong. The fact that the left side is celebrating this judgement (and the rape one) tells me they dont care about that justice system, they just want to use it.
  
  Because it was literally a victimless crime.
  He overstated is net worth in a loan application to obtain a lower interest rate
  The bank approved, gave him the money, and he paid it all back, with interest
  The bank, upon finding out, declined to sue him and even said they'd be happy to work with him again in the future
  The NYC AG decided to sue anyways because it's technically not allowed to misrepresent your income on a bank form
  The judge decides on an excessive amount of fines simply because they hate him and want to ruin his campaign
  I don't care how much you hate Trump, this is just plain dirty, like kicking your opponent in the nuts in a fist fight.
- Everyone ITT: “unreasonable and excessive punishment is great as long as it happens to someone I hate”
  For anyone confused, LegalEagle did a very good breakdown of the case:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJbgKP-2cFg&t=1331s
  Note the timestamp linked where he mentions the harsh penalty from the Judge, and explains that it is due to Trump's multiple previous fraud convictions (Trump Charity, Trump University, etc). He keeps. Committing. Fraud.
  "It worked out okay this time even if it didn't the 5 previous times" is not a good defense. Clearly he will not stop committing fraud unless faced with harsher penalties, and the vast majority of the time it is not victimless.
  
  Yeah, okay, I have imaginary lawyer friends too who disagree about the punishment fitting the crime.
  https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/23/judge-engorons-inflation-of-trumps-ill-gotten-gains-is-a-financial-crime-in-itself/

308 comments