Happy Leap Day. You would think we would have more traditions associated with this day, but apparently that only happens on the old sitcom 30 Rock. On the menu today: a look at Donald Trump’s Denali-like mountain of legal bills and fines, the likely incoming RNC co-chair’s eagerness to cover some of those costs, and whether a presidential campaign that spends more is more likely to win the election.
Financial Woes Dog Trump — and the RNC
If you haven’t been reading my colleague Andy McCarthy on, well, everything, you must. But in particular, Andy’s kept a sharp eye on Donald Trump’s court cases and the decisions against him, and the gargantuan legal costs and fines piling up against the likely Republican presidential nominee.
From the early 1980s to about 2016, if you asked people what they thought of when they heard the name “Donald Trump,” a lot of people would answer “wealth” or “money.” Trump himself has always been eager to boast that he’s worth $10 billion. Others have pegged that total as significantly lower, but he’s still worth at least a billion and probably worth 2 billion.
But whatever Trump’s net worth is, a lot of it is tied up in illiquid assets — meaning it comprises real-estate properties rather than giant piles of cash in bank accounts or piles of coins like in Uncle Scrooge’s Money Bin.
As you probably heard, earlier this month, a New York judge ordered Trump to pay $355 million in penalties in a civil-fraud case, after determining that the former president lied about his wealth for years — a sum that was raised to $354.9 million in penalties plus nearly $100 million in interest. The debt also includes post-judgment interest of nearly $112,000 each day.
Andy’s latest report notes that under the most recent ruling, Trump has about a month to find a loan that will help him cover the payment of that debt:
Trump was seeking a stay pending appeal of New York attorney general Letitia James’s enforcement of the judgment. Absent court relief, Trump must post a bond in the full amount, plus interest, by March 25. Otherwise, either he will have to pay the full amount (which he’s obviously not prepared to do), or James will be permitted to begin litigation to seize his assets in satisfaction of the judgment.
This afternoon, a state appellate judge denied Trump’s application to stay enforcement of the judgment. As of now, he is still required to post a bond in the full amount in order to stave off James while he appeals the civil-fraud verdict.
Nevertheless, Justice Anil C. Singh did give Trump some relief. He agreed to stay enforcement of several aspects of the verdict and judgment rendered by the trial judge, Arthur Engoron. Most consequentially for present purposes, the part that barred Trump from seeking loans has been stayed. . . .
At least theoretically, Trump will now have an opportunity to arrange loans to secure a bond. As a practical matter, of course, it takes two to tango. Even absent a strict prohibition against applying for loans, Trump’s financial straits are very tough right now. Lenders will be worried about his future capacity to repay gigantic loans, and about the fact that they would have to compete with judgment-creditors (such as New York state and E. Jean Carroll), who would also be seeking to seize collateral assets if he cannot satisfy his obligations.
Andy also notes that on March 18, Trump and his lawyers will have the opportunity to argue that the fine is excessive and punitive — and thinks Trump may have better odds of succeeding with that argument than many legal other legal analysts believe:
Many observers familiar with New York practice assess that Trump has little chance of prevailing on that point. I am not convinced this is so: The amount of the judgment is so out of proportion with the wrong proved by the state — which was unable to prove there were any fraud victims after eleven weeks of trial — that it may offend the higher court’s sense of fairness. Like the Eighth Amendment to the federal Constitution, New York’s Constitution explicitly forbids the imposition of “excessive fines.”
Ultimately, Trump may not prevail on an excessive-fine claim. But one could easily see the appellate court reducing the “disgorgement” penalty, perhaps drastically. Indeed, in what was a patently politicized lawsuit — brought by an elected progressive Democratic attorney general, and presided over by an elected progressive Democratic judge, both of whom were unabashed in their loathing of Trump — I believe the objective of such an exorbitant file was to make it difficult for Trump to appeal.
Consequently, I could see the appellate court agreeing to allow Trump to post a bond in an amount substantially lower than $454 million, with the proviso that if James prevails on the full amount on appeal, she can seek to collect from Trump post-appeal. Meantime, if Trump wins a reduction on appeal, a bond of much less than $454 million would cover it.
Meanwhile, Trump’s legal costs keep piling up higher; when you add up the fraud fine, the two judgments in E. Jean Carroll’s cases against him, a fine for refusing to comply with a subpoena, and legal fees for an unsuccessful case against Hillary Clinton, you’re looking at considerably more than a half a billion dollars.
Who’s going to cover all those costs?
Enter Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who is expected to become the next co-chair of the Republican National Committee:
Lara Trump said Wednesday while campaigning for her father-in-law ahead of the South Carolina primary that she was not familiar with the RNC’s rules about paying Donald Trump’s legal fees in a multitude of criminal and civil cases.
But she said she thought the idea would get broad support among GOP voters who see his legal cases as political persecution.
“That’s why people are furious right now. And they see the attacks against him. They feel like it’s an attack not just on Donald Trump but on this country,” she said. “So yeah, I think that is a big interest to people, absolutely.”
For what it’s worth, Henry Barbour, an RNC committeeman from Mississippi — and yes, he’s the nephew of former Mississippi governor and RNC chair Haley Barbour — intends to introduce a resolution declaring that the committee “will not pay the legal bills of any candidate for federal or state office but will instead focus its spending on efforts directly related to the 2024 election.”
Filings with the Federal Election Commission indicate that the RNC began 2024 with just over $8 million in cash on hand, the lowest since 1993, adjusted for inflation. The Democratic National Committee began the year with $24 million in cash on hand.
As you may recall, under departing RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, the RNC spent a whole lot of money on things that were . . . tangentially related to electing candidates at best:
Red State’s Jennifer Van Laar reported that the RNC spent about $297,000 on office supplies, $1 million on management consulting, $70,000 on floral arrangements, $116,000 on media-booking consultants, and $263,000 on limousines — significantly more than their counterparts in the Democratic National Committee in each category. Meanwhile, the DNC significantly outspent the RNC on voter-file maintenance, get-out-the-vote texting, and transfers to state parties — you know, the sorts of efforts that actually help candidates get elected.
So, Trump owes a fortune in legal bills and fines, the likely next RNC co-chair says Republicans want the already-underfunded committee to cover Trump’s legal bills, and thus, Republicans are doomed in 2024, right? Well, a lack of funds is almost always bad news, but it can be overcome.
Back in autumn of 2016, the disparity in the number of campaign offices between the Hillary Clinton campaign and Trump’s campaign was absurd:
Clinton has more than twice as many field offices as Trump nationwide (489 vs. 207), and her organization dominates Trump’s in every battleground state. Clinton’s offices outnumber Trump’s by 20 in New Hampshire, 22 in Iowa, 20 in Colorado, and 27 in North Carolina. In the states where Trump has opened the most offices, such as Pennsylvania (42), Florida (29) and Ohio (22), Clinton’s advantage remans large: She bests him by 15 offices in Pennsylvania, 39 in Florida and 47 in Ohio. Trump’s ground game is far from nonexistent, but his campaign simply does not have the infrastructure to match Clinton’s capabilities for voter contact and mobilization.
At the beginning of September, the Clinton campaign had 51 offices in the state of Florida. Trump had one.
And yet, as you likely recall, Trump won Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio — and he came within 2,736 votes of winning New Hampshire. As NBC later calculated:
Over the final 100 days of the election, Trump made a total of 133 visits to Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin. Over the same time period, Hillary Clinton visited the first five of those states a total of 87 times. She never traveled to Wisconsin during the 102 days between the convention and the election.
In the end, a presidential candidate having more campaign offices — even a lot more campaign offices — is not necessarily an indicator that the candidate will win the state. And judging from those 2016 results, an energetic candidate who can barnstorm through states and do more events in those crucial swing states may well have an advantage.
But hey, I’m sure 81-year-old Joe Biden will be energetic and vigorous this autumn. Yesterday, the president’s physician issued another report declaring Biden is “fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.”
ADDENDUM: In case you missed it yesterday, there are some ominous rumblings out of Transnistria; Joe Biden described an imminent cease-fire agreement that doesn’t exist; and under Viktor Orbán, the Hungarians are cozying up to Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and the Iranian mullahs. What, were the North Koreans unavailable last week?