Donald Trump owes an additional $87,502 in interest every day until he pays the $354 million fine in his civil fraud case, according to ABC News' calculations.
Former President Donald Trump owes an additional $87,502 in post-judgment interest every day until he pays the $354 million fine ordered by Judge Arthur Engoron in his civil fraud case, according to ABC News' calculations based on the judge's lengthy ruling in the case.
Judge Engoron on Friday fined Trump $354 million plus approximately $100 million in pre-judgment interest in the civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, after he found that Trump and his adult sons had inflated Trump's net worth in order to get more favorable loan terms. The former president has denied all wrongdoing and has said he will appeal.
Engoron ordered Trump to pay pre-judgment interest on each ill-gotten gain -- with interest accruing based on the date of each transaction -- as well as a 9% post-judgment interest rate once the court enters the judgment in the case.
No, that's literally his own defense, I just happen to agree with it.
Imagine you lie on your resume and inflate your experience in order to get a certain job. They hire you and pay you 20% over what you would have qualified for based on your actual experience, but you do a good job and your manager just happy with your performance, and when you leave, they give you a good recommendation for you next job. Five or ten years later, you're just about to make a downpayment for your first house, and suddenly, not your employer, but the government shows up and sues you because lying on your resume is illegal, and they demand you pay all the extra money you earned PLUS interest and fines.
That's sorta how petty this case is. And if you cheer for this kinda stuff, you deserve for it to happen to you.
Being an average law abiding citizen and not an infamous, law breaking billionare, I'm not too worried. See, rules-based societies work great for people who can follow the rules.
Okay, let's do a little thought exercise here, shall we?
Smoking and selling marijuana was illegal for much of the last century or so. Now both is legal in many states. While it was still illegal, many people all over the country were convicted under that law. Do you agree, then, that because what they did was illegal at the time, them being punished was justice being served AT THE TIME, regardless of whether it is now legal?
Should people who were convicted unter the old law be forced to sit out their sentences in full because at the time, their conviction was fully in accordance with rules-based society, or is it possible that rules can be wrong, regardless of how technically legal they are?
Your thought exercise is about something legal that used to be illegal. Has fraud suddenly become legal? No? So what's your point? Your 'lying on a resume' example made more sense, even if it was ridiculous.
Right. You rejected my thorough experiment on the basis that fraud would never be made legal, so I gave you an example where this has literally happened, and your response is “then it’s no longer fraud”?
My God, are you literally this stupid or are you being paid to pretend you are?
So those underage prostitutes he filmed himself doing drugs and having sex with don’t count as victims then? Good to know.
How about Joe should be in jail for whatever he did to make Hunter this way, and Hunter should be in closed rehab. My guess is he probably IS a victim of his father in some way, so I’m willing to spare him from prison, but he probably shouldn’t have any access to drugs or unsupervised contact with children or teens.
Hunter is a drug addict, a sex addict, and a pedophile. I imagine you don't just magically turn out that way if you had a great and unproblematic childhood, but I suppose child abuse isn't technically illegal unless it's violent, so... yay Joe?
Anyways, I fail to see how holding Trump accountable while defending your own guy from accusations is supposed to teach me a lesson on how responsibility is supposed to work. Isn't that precisely the same behavior you're accusing me of?
You must see how your scenario differs… It isn’t illegal to lie on a resume, and in this case Trump’s not being asked to give back anywhere near the amount his lies earned him.
Perhaps, but it's morally objectionable in the same way and for the same reasons as what Trump did. You're basically just saying "my crime isn't a crime because it's technically not illegal".
Oh and you're flat out wrong about the last part, because Trump was fined not only the amount of interest the banks lost out on, but additionally also all of the profit he made from transactions that the money helped facilitate. Plus 9% interest.
I mean the definition of crime is literally "an illegal act for which someone can be punished by the government". So it being "technically illegal" is the basis for it being a crime or not.
The fraudulent valuations went both ways. He artificially inflated the values for lines of credit and loans, and artificially deflated the values for the purpose of tax evasion. Letitia James pulled an Elliot Ness on him with this case.
As far as I can tell, this case was only about him inflating the value of his properties in order to obtain more favorable terms on his loan.
If he did also undervalue them for the purpose of paying less taxes, that would be a separate case. And in that case, I wouldn't argue that it was a victimless crime.
He cheated on his taxes by having the deed to Mar-a-lago restricted to commercial use only while using it and valuing it as if it were a single family residence. It's a massive difference in value when it comes to taxes and that isn't the only property he had deed restrictions or easements on.
His tax evasion is a significant piece of his fraud. Even if you insist on discounting it, the laws and regulations violated in this case are set up to allow enforcement of fair business practices in New York, and in large part were enacted in the 60's because of how easily businesses were evading the common law fraud regulations. It's less about whether or not there is a victim, but rather about whether or not outside businesses and interests can rely on fair practices and enforcement in New York as a whole.
Again, that may be the case, but this lawsuit wasn't about that.
By insisting that he deserves this ruling because of something else he did, you're only proving that this has nothing to do with justice, and you simply want to see him punished in any way possible.
The point of the laws he broke is to limit corruption and fraud in business in New York. What he did is exactly and explicitly what the laws are in place to try to prevent.
Who says lying on your resume is illegal? If it was illegal then you broke the law and face the consequences of your actions, the most "conservative" thing you can do: own up to your life choices.
All that said, I personally am "stuck" in the position I'm in because I don't lie on my resume. I don't want to suffer the consequences of my lie.
I didn’t say it was. To be honest, I don’t know if it is, I was just trying to draw a comparison that would be easier to relate to for the average person.
If he committed crimes and is found to be guilty then toss him in with the rest of the criminals. I don't think anyone here has an issue with that. The only issue would be with "crimes" that only seem to have evidence in the hands of political actors that never seem to end up in the hands of the justice system so they can actually do something about it, the mysterious hunter laptop that UPS magically lost from the blind repair guy who decided to look into it comes to mind.
Unfortunately in our society we are the only ones that face justice. If you're rich or in politics you get to point the finger elsewhere and cry "unfair bias!" or for the wealthy, just pay a lawyer to make it all go away.
The 51 intelligence officials who signed a letter saying that it was "Russian disinformation" have since been identified as part of a Biden campaign operation to help get him elected.
So, now that you know this, what should be done about this? Biden clearly lied to the public and obtained his victory under false pretenses. Seems far more serious of a crime than cheating a bank out of a few million dollars in interest, no?