The week-that-was will likely weigh heavily on the 45th president for the months and years to come. On Friday, Arthur Engoron, a New York judge, found Donald Trump and his businesses liable for conspiracy and ordered them to pay $355m. On top of that, the court banned Trump from serving at the helm of any New York company for three years and his two adult sons from serving in that capacity for two years, while imposing a $4m penalty on both of the boys.
In a 92-page decision, Engoron also lacerated Trump’s pretensions of credibility. He repeatedly tagged Trump for his allergy to the truth.
“Donald Trump rarely responded to the questions asked, and he frequently interjected long, irrelevant speeches on issues far beyond the scope of the trial,” the decision reads. “His refusal to answer the questions directly, or in some cases, at all, severely compromised his credibility.”
He added that the court had “found preliminarily that defendants had a propensity to engage in persistent fraud by submitting false and misleading Statements of Financial Condition … on behalf of Donald Trump”.
One footnote in the legal judgment went like this: “Peterson-Withorn, Chase. ‘Donald Trump Has Been Lying About The Size of His Penthouse.’ Forbes, May 3, 2017.”
For the record, Trump invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination more than 400 times at deposition. “Anyone in my position not taking the fifth amendment would be a fool, an absolute fool,” he said. It is all of a piece.
Trump is on a roll, of sorts. One day earlier, Juan Merchan, a second Manhattan judge, set a 25 March start date for Trump’s trial on state-law felony charges. “Stop interrupting me,” the judge scolded the defendant’s legal team.
Merchan also denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the underlying 34-count indictment. According to Manhattan prosecutors, Trump purportedly directed hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress, and Karen McDougal, an adult model.
But Trump’s streak doesn’t end there. Last week, a US court of appeals rejected his demand for absolute immunity. US presidents are not kings, the court reminded us.
“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power,” the unsigned but unanimous opinion read.
“We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”
Then again, the US supreme court may put the case on ice. We may know more next week.
Appeals are expensive. Trump will also need to bond or otherwise secure the mammoth-sized judgment. Interest accrues, too. Regardless, others must pay for his sins.
The forced departure of Ronna McDaniel from the helm of the Republican National Committee signals that Trump intends to make the RNC a personal piggy bank. After essentially self-financing his primary run in 2016, he turned up his palms to face off against Hillary Clinton. According to campaign finance filings, his political committees have shelled out more than $50m in legal fees.
The ex-reality show host has not always been awash in cash. “My net worth fluctuates,” Trump once swore. “It goes up and down with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings.”
His casinos have gone bust, his companies bankrupted a half-dozen times. Restructurings pock his borrowings. Trump University is no more.
Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, first uncovered by the Guardian in 2016, placed his liquidity at north of $250m as of mid-2011, his wealth at $4.2bn. This past October, Forbes pegged his worth at $2.6bn. He did not make its iconic 400 richest list. “He’s nowhere near as rich as he boasts, nor as poor as some critics claim.”
The value of his assets appears to have shrunk even as his liquidity has grown. “I have over 400 – fairly substantially, over $400m in cash,” he recently testified. These days, he’s staring at judgments hovering near $450m.
The latest blows come on the heels of January’s $83.3m verdict in E Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial. Heading toward November, the “law-and-order” candidate is an adjudicated predator. Lewis Kaplan, the presiding judge in the Carroll cases, stressed that Trump had sexually assaulted her.
Guilty verdicts loom as possibilities in both the hush-money and election interference cases. Manhattan juries don’t love him, judging by the size of the recent Carroll verdict. DC juries previously convicted Trump’s cronies Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro and Roger Stone. January 6 defendants have also fared poorly.
Trump later pardoned Bannon and Stone. He has vowed to do the same for those who stormed the Capitol in his name.
Americans aren’t enamored with a convicted felon sitting in the Oval Office. Then again, they haven’t cottoned to the incumbent. By itself, Friday’s ruling will sway few. On the other hand, wavering voters may get off the fence if a criminal conviction or two follow.
Days ago, Trump raged against Letitia James and Engoron. He blasted the attorney general as “corrupt”, the judge as “biased”, the case as “rigged”.
It’s been nearly a decade since he hosted The Apprentice. The former reality show host sounds scared. Welcome to the theatre of the real.
• Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
• This article was amended on 17 February. An earlier subheading said that Donald Trump was banned from running any business in New York; that should have specified that the ban was for three years. The text was also amended as it said that Donald Jr and Eric Trump were banned from running any New York company for three years, like their father. They were banned for two years.
