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A TRUMP $$$ MYSTERY IS ABOUT TO BE REVEALED  
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David Cay Johnston
January 27, 2024
DCReport
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_ Writer E. Jean Carroll has Trump by the wallet. Can he perform? _

E. Jean Carroll and lawyers smiling after jury awarded her $83.3
million from Donald Trump, Image: SkyNews screengrab

 

The $83.3 million defamation judgment that writer E. Jean Carroll won
Friday against Donald Trump will soon reveal the depth of his
finances, long shrouded in smoke and mirrors, disclaimers that his
financial statements are not to be trusted, and outright fabrications
about his income and wealth.

The secret: does Trump have the money to pay Carroll?

Trump says he’ll appeal. He has few grounds to challenge the federal
court judgment. But if Trump does appeal, it will open the curtain on
 his murky finances, where inflated valuations and concealed
obligations are common.

Only a foolhardy or corrupt banker would issue Trump a bond enabling
his appeal of the $83.3 million award to E. Jean Carroll.

Trump testified almost a year ago that he was sitting on $400 million
of cash. Be skeptical. Don’t discount the prospect that Donald
conflated his personal money with cash from his MAGA fundraising
operations, which by law cannot be used to pay Carroll.

Appealing will require Trump to either deposit the entire judgment
amount with the court or obtain a bond covering 20% of the judgment,
close to $17 million.

If you were in the financial business, would you loan any money to
Trump? What if he offered to pay a fat fee upfront? A high-interest
rate? What real estate would you take as collateral to back the bond,
knowing that if the appeal fails, Trump will fight to keep you from
collecting?

As early as this week, Trump expects a Manhattan judge to impose a
fine of more than $300 million for persistent financial fraud.

Naked Claim

Even if Trump had $400 million cash a year ago, an unverified claim,
he has faced enormous legal and other bills since then. At the same
time, his golf courses in Ireland and Scotland continued losing money,
public records in London show.

The Carroll case and the expected New York State civil judgment for
persistent fraud would consume 96% of the cash he claimed without
proof.

Suppose Trump can’t financially qualify to pursue an appeal. In that
case, Carroll can enforce judgment, seizing cash in bank accounts and
pitting liens on properties such as the portion of Trump Tower that
Trump still owns and Mar-a-Lago in Florida. That would take time and
cost Trump a small fortune in legal fees—he has a history of
stiffing his lawyers—to delay paying Carroll. Meanwhile, interest
costs will add to the $83.3 million obligation.

Trump hopes that an appeals court will find the damages award
excessive. Death cases, after all, are often settled for a few million
dollars, sometimes a few hundred thousand.

 He is unlikely to prevail because the jury awarded $18.3 million in
compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages. As a rule,
courts respect punitive awards of less than six times actual damages.
This punitive award was about 3.6 times the compensatory damages.

The punitive damages are intended, as Carroll lawyer Roberta Kaplan
told the federal court jury, to get Trump to stop lying about Carroll.
After Ean earlier trial Trump was judged to have raped Carroll in a
Bergdorf-Goodman department store dressing room and to have lied about
it in repeated attacks on Carroll. More than two dozen other women
have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault.

Trump insists he never met Carroll and “she’s not my type.”
During a pretrial deposition he was shown a photo of himself and his
first wife  facing E. Jean Carroll and her then husband. Trump
misidentified Carroll as his second wife, Marla Maples. When his
lawyer interrupted to repair the damage Trump asserted that the
sharply focused image was blurry.

[Photo of Trump and his first wife facing E. Jean Carroll and her then
husband. In sworn testimony Trump said misidentified Carroll as Marla
Maples, his second wife, then claimed the image was blurred.]
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Photo of Trump and his first wife facing E. Jean Carroll and her then
husband. In sworn testimony Trump said misidentified Carroll as Marla
Maples, his second wife, then claimed the image was blurred.

Knowing Trump, I doubt he will stop attacking Carroll. His emotional
state and views about women, frozen in puberty, and his declining
mental health and cognitive capacity will not facilitate a proper
change in conduct.

Fantasy Finances

Trump’s finances have always been exercises in fantasy. For example,
in 1985, he bought Mar-a-Lago for $10 million. He claimed it was a
cash purchase with no mortgage. I have in my home a Chase bank
executive’s letter to Trump promising never to file the Mar-a-Lago
mortgage at a courthouse, as banking laws require.

One reality is that Trump borrowed 125% of the purchase price, taking
$2 million for himself while claiming he paid from his supposed rich
cash deposits. A second is that bankers who declare their illegal
conduct rarely get prosecuted or even disciplined, so weak is
government regulation of finance in America.

The same year he bought Mar-a-Lago with the hidden mortgage, Trump
also acquired the nearly finished Hilton Casino in Atlantic City. He
paid with a $325 million loan, from which he shaved off a $5 million
fee for himself.

Eventually, he owned three Atlantic City casinos,  yet he never
invested a dime in that New Jersey resort town. It was all borrowed
money. Because he took fees for himself from the loan proceeds, his
investment was less than zero, just as with Mar-a-Lago.

Only a foolhardy or corrupt banker would issue Trump a bond enabling
his appeal of the $83.3 million award to E. Jean Carroll. If Trump
fails to meet the financial qualifications for an appeal, there’s
one thing we’ll know for sure: the man who ran for president
claiming he was worth more than $10 billion is so financially weak
that when an 80-year-old woman grabbed him by the wallet, he
couldn’t perform.

_DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
[[link removed]] co-founded DCReport. He
is a best-selling author and investigative journalist who for 13 years
reported for The New York Times. Johnston is a specialist in economics
and tax issues. He won a 2001 Pulitzer Prize. He teaches at Syracuse
University College of Law._

_ABOUT DCREPORT: [[link removed]] DCReport is
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_DCReport was co-founded by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David
Cay Johnston, author of seven books including The Making of Donald
Trump
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most recently, The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and
Enriched Himself and His Family
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and David Crook, a veteran journalist who was the founder and editor
of The Wall Street Journal Sunday._

* Donald Trump
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* E. Jean Carroll
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