The Russia Investigations and other Trump-related cases

[N.E. Brigand]

Donald Trump wrote this morning that he has the cash to pay the judgment but that he needs it to run his campaign.

He might indeed now have the funds. "Donald Trump’s social media company merged with a cash-rich shell corporation, raising Trump’s wealth by billions and potentially providing him a fresh source of cash to pay his mounting legal bills." This deal was in the works for a while but only just got approval.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There seems to be some question about how he was able to get so much out of this deal.



To me the question is who is Digital World Acquisition Corporation and why are they willing to make this investment? Is it the Saudis, the Chinese the Russians, or some other foreign group looking to influence a possible new Trump presidency?

[N.E. Brigand]

There seems to be some question about how he was able to get so much out of this deal.

To me the question is who is Digital World Acquisition Corporation and why are they willing to make this investment? Is it the Saudis, the Chinese the Russians, or some other foreign group looking to influence a possible new Trump presidency?

CREW reports that Digital World's major investor is a company owned by Jeff Yass, whose name came up in our discussions of TikTok, in which Yass is also an investor. Donald Trump, like most Republicans and most Democrats, had been pushing for the company called ByteDance to give up that social media company because of risks of the Chinese government obtaining U.S. users' data. Trump changed his mind after meeting with Yass.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I saw that. That is concerning.

[N.E. Brigand]

Most reporting I've seen suggests that Donald Trump can't sell the Truth Social shares for six months. However, I believe he could offer them now as collateral to someone else who would put up his bond now. To that end, Fox News gave Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, the opportunity to quell the suggestion that Trump is seeking funding from "Saudi Arabia or Russia as Joy Behar [of MSNBC] seems to believe". Nothing doing! Habba wouldn't commit to saying that.

[N.E. Brigand]

In a filing from Letitia James's office yesterday, the attorney general's office said that Donald Trump's filing was improper and untimely, argued that bonding companies' decision not to accept his properties as collateral suggests that the properties aren't as valuable as he claimed, pointed out that he failed to disclose a relationship with one of the expert witnesses he cited, and suggested that if Trump can't get one company to cover the $464 bond in full, he should try to secure a number of smaller bonds from different companies.

In last week's filing, Letitia James's office also pointed out that even larger bonds have been secured in other cases:

Moreover, contrary to the assertions in Mr. Giulietti’s reply affirmation (see Giulietti Affirm. ¶¶ 16, 22), there is nothing unusual about even billion-dollar judgments being fully bonded on appeal. See, e.g., Supersedeas Bond, Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications, Inc., No. 18-cv-950 (E.D. Va. Feb. 8, 2021), ECF No. 731 ($1 billion); Supersedeas Bond, Apple, Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., No. 11-cv-1846 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 11, 2014), ECF No. 3028-1 ($1 billion); Supersedeas Bond, Carnegie Mellon, No. 09-cv-290 (W.D. Pa.), ECF No. 955 ($1.54 billion); Supersedeas Bond, Oracle, No. 07-cv-1658 (N.D. Cal.), ECF No. 1076-1 ($1.33 billion).

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Appellate Division, First Department said Trump can post a bond "in the amount of $175 million" to cover the judgment.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... 0b94c&ei=8

ETA: I should add that for all the handwringing that I have seen complaining about Trump's "special treatment" I think this is absolutely the correct decision.

[N.E. Brigand]

Is it regular practice in New York to reduce the bond by 62% during the appeals process? If so, it seems like they could just rewrite the law to make that explicit. And yet it didn't happen with the bonding for either of two judgements that Donald Trump owes to E. Jean Carroll, so I guess it's not standard after all. Maybe it's normal when you have three judgements against you all pending appeal that you get a break on the third one? In which case, Letitia James screwed up by not getting her case in ahead of the other two.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

You are comparing apples to oranges. The Carroll cases are in federal court; the NY AG case is in state court. Completely unrelated.

ETA: Also, the comparative size of the judgment in the NY AG case, the respective nature of the cases, and the fact that the Carroll cases were (fairly ironclad) jury verdicts while the NY AG was a (potentially questionable) bench verdict, also make comparisons fairly inapplicable.

[N.E. Brigand]

OK, fair enough. I do wonder what would have happened if this ruling had not come out today. Letitia James had already indicated that Donald Trump could pursue multiple smaller bonds rather than one large one. And he had no guarantee that the appellate division would rule today, or what the ruling would say. Was he working on smaller bonds? Would he have filed one or more of those today? Or was he just going to give up and watch James start seizing his properties?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I only sometimes agree with George Conway, but I agree with this take.

[N.E. Brigand]

Most reporting I've seen suggests that Donald Trump can't sell the Truth Social shares for six months. However, I believe he could offer them now as collateral to someone else who would put up his bond now. To that end, Fox News gave Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, the opportunity to quell the suggestion that Trump is seeking funding from "Saudi Arabia or Russia as Joy Behar [of MSNBC] seems to believe". Nothing doing! Habba wouldn't commit to saying that.

Truth Social is on the stock market today (ticker code "DJT") and currently has a valuation of $14 billion, which is more than twice as much as Reddit -- which just had its IPO (initial public offering) last week -- even though Reddit "generated 160 times more revenue [$804 million] than Trump Media [$5 million]."

[N.E. Brigand]

The New York Times reports today:

"Mr. Trump's company paid Mr. Weisselberg's legal bills and awarded him a $2 million severance, with a condition: He could not voluntarily cooperate with any law enforcement agency."

Did we officialy know this before? (As opposed to merely suspecting it?)

As wouldn't any such deal itself be illegal? Can you pay someone to not cooperate with a criminal investigation? Isn't that conspiracy to obstruct justice?

- - - - - - - - - - -
Edited to add: Weisselberg did in fact testify about this in the civil case that Trump, his sons, and his company lost a month ago. So it's not news. But it is baffling to me that an agreement like this is legal.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No that is not news. And the key word is "voluntarily". It would not stop him from being forced to testify pursuant to a subpoena. Why would that be illegal. Should he not have the choice to voluntarily do what he chooses to do?

[N.E. Brigand]

No that is not news. And the key word is "voluntarily". It would not stop him from being forced to testify pursuant to a subpoena. Why would that be illegal. Should he not have the choice to voluntarily do what he chooses to do. It is baffling to me that you would think that should be illegal.

This reminds me of the admonition that attorneys online like Ken White frequently make: "never talk to the police," which sometimes is expanded to read "never talk to the police without your attorney present." I get the idea that even if you're innocent of any wrongdoing, the police are naturally suspicious and will try to trick you into incriminating yourself, and you may put yourself in legal jeopardy by agreeing to an interview.

But the internet attorneys never say how far that stricture should go. For example, one big argument made in favor of so-called "sanctuary cities" is that if illegal immigrants are afraid the police will have them deported, they won't report crimes, and the criminals will be able to keep criming. You want people to report crimes! But that means talking to the police. But apparently you shouldn't do that. And it applies to others as well. If I see a person kill someone else, and the police come up to me and say, "Which way did the killer go?", I want to tell them. I don't want to say, "I can't talk to you without my lawyer." But White et al. never address that sort of situation when offering their blanket warnings about not talking to police. (Every time I seem them say things like that, I look for clarity and it's not forthcoming.) Now you may say: "Duh, it's common sense that they don't mean that." But it's not. None of these online attorneys say, "Don't talk to the police except to report a crime." If they mean that, why don't they say that?

Now suppose that the killer had previously agreed to pay me $2 million that I will only receive a few years later if I don't cooperate with the police on any matter that could be legally adverse to the killer unless prosecutors force me to. So while I'm waiting for my lawyer and a subpoena, the killer kills more people on the next block because I saw the first murder, and I knew where the killer had gone, but I "voluntarily" chose not to tell the police.

Yeah, I voluntarily entered into a conspiracy with the killer to help him get away with murder.

I'm baffled that anyone would be baffled that this seems wrong.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There's a difference between something being "wrong" and something being "illegal". A government that could ban someone from voluntarily agreeing not to do something would the kind of authoritarian government that Donald Trump would like to create.

[N.E. Brigand]

But when the cops ask me which way the killer went, should I talk to them or not?

Are you (and White and the others) not allowed to answer that question because it could someday be construed as bad legal advice? It just seems so bizarre that nobody ever answers this very simple question.

Edited to add: I'm reminded a little of the attorney who wrote years ago in the local paper that you shouldn't shovel the snow from your sidewalk, because if you don't do an absolutely perfect job and someone slips, they could sue you. So we end up with lots of sidewalks covered in a foot of snow and pedestrians instead walk in the ploughed streets, putting themselves at risk of getting hit by a car.

(I try to keep my sidewalk shoveled regardless. Screw that attorney. He's a bad person trying to make society worse.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

But when the cops ask me which way the killer went, should I talk to them or not?.

It depends on the circumstances. In most cases, I would say that it would be morally right for you to tell them which the killer went. In at least some cases, it would be wrong to legally require you to tell them.

[N.E. Brigand]

Thanks, V.

And I apologize for the tetchiness of my posts last night.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I was a little tetchy too (I see that you managed to respond to one of my posts before I edited it to remove some of the tetchiness).

I do think that the division between morality and legality is an important. Certainly there is an overlap, but I also think that there is a big danger to trying to hard to legislate morality, which like beauty is often in the eyes of the beholder. I wouldn't want Pat Robertson telling me what I can or can't do. Or Louis Farrakhan.