Mr. Trump's new headache: How to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines?
Two fines issued in less than a few weeks forced Mr. Trump to pay millions of dollars in compensation, but that may only be a part of the amount the former US President must pay.
In a few weeks, Mr. Trump had to suffer two huge fines from two civil trials in New York, including $83 million for defaming writer E Jean Carroll and $354.9 million for inflating his financial value. assets on financial statements.
In total, these judgments will cost Mr. Trump about $438 million. Bloomberg's list of billionaires estimates that Mr. Trump's net worth in 2021 is about $2.3 billion, meaning that the above two judgments alone could take away nearly one-fifth of that fortune.
But it all depends on the appeal
Mr. Trump will likely appeal both sentences, and their results could affect the amount he must pay. It is unclear how long the appeal will take. For comparison, the New York Court of Appeals has not yet made a decision in the appeal of the May 2023 ruling concluding that Mr. Trump committed sexual abuse and defamation with writer Carroll.
In that case, Mr. Trump was ordered to pay $5 million in compensation. Guardian expects it will probably take at least several months before the appeals court decides on the appeal.
It is difficult for Mr. Trump to go bankrupt
438 million USD is not a small amount of money, but Mr. Trump is still very rich. To declare bankruptcy, Mr. Trump would have to prove that the judgment is worth more than his assets, something very unlikely.
When answering the prosecutor in the fraud trial in April 2023, Mr. Trump said he had more than $400 million in cash. But last year, Forbes reported that Mr. Trump invested most of his cash in bonds, while a small portion was poured into stocks and mutual funds. After the ruling, Mr. Trump may have to sell a large part of that investment.
A big question is whether Mr. Trump will have to use assets in his real estate portfolio. He has made money from real estate, such as the sale of a golf club in the Bronx last year, or the time he closed the sale of the Old Post building in Washington D.C. in 2022. According to the New York Times, court records show that the sale of Old Post brought in $131.4 million before taxes.
Mr. Trump still has to transfer money to the court even if the appeal is approved
According to the Guardian, many appeals have not yet resulted, but Mr. Trump will still have to transfer money to the court to temporarily hold. If Mr. Trump is successful in his appeal, he can get his money back.
To pay the court, Mr. Trump has several options. You can pay in full in cash, or you can try to reach a claim underwriting agreement.
With the latter option, Mr. Trump must pay a guarantee amount in advance to show his commitment to comply with the judgment if the appeal fails. In return, he had to put up collateral and pay additional fees.
Using campaign money to pay court fees will complicate the issue
Mr. Trump has taken advantage of his legal troubles to actively raise campaign funds. But it is unclear how much of that money Mr. Trump can use to pay legal fees. US federal law prohibits candidates from using campaign funds for personal purposes, making it difficult for Mr. Trump to use campaign funds to help pay part of Ms. Carroll's compensation and fraud fines.
However, Mr. Trump did not hesitate to use campaign funds for some court cases. AP reported in October that Mr. Trump's Save America political action committee (PAC) used $37 million to pay legal fees, accounting for more than half of this PAC's total spending.
