Experts say a cash crunch in coming weeks could thrust the former president’s business into greater uncertainty than it has seen in decades
Hours after a New York judge ordered Donald Trump to pay a $355 million penalty for submitting false data to financial institutions, the former president railed against the decision during a fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago Club with some of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors.
Trump claimed at that Feb. 16 gathering that the judge in the civil fraud case had made history by ordering him to pay such a staggering sum, according to two people who were there. He suggested that the judgment was so severe that the public would consider it unfair and rally in support. Over and over, he returned to the penalty, livid at its size.
The episode offered a glimpse of Trump’s preoccupation with a legal decision that threatens his wealth and has thrust his business empire into greater uncertainty than perhaps any time since the 1990s, when his Atlantic City casinos fell into extreme debt, leading six of his companies to file for bankruptcy.
Trump, who built his business and political identities around boasts of financial savvy, now faces an immediate cash crunch of more than a half-billion dollars — the combined cost of two legal battles that will now test the limits of his personal wealth.
I never honestly expected him to appeal. It was all blustering and threats in an attempt to bully the courts into giving him more leeway, and to secure more donations from his rube supporters.
Donald Trump knows full well that these civil judgements don’t matter at all. Unless he is able to win this election, he is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. Once this country learns what he was really doing with those classified materials, and how much of a traitor he really is then he will be well and truly fucked.
None of this money matters at all right now. If he gets back in the oval office he will manipulate the courts in a way that will guarantee he never pays, and if he doesn’t he is going to flee the country or tear it apart.