Donald J. Trump is anticipated to spend his Monday morning within the courtroom of a New York choose who would possibly quickly preside over his felony trial and, finally, throw him behind bars. And that’s not even the authorized predicament that worries Mr. Trump most that day.
The listening to in his Manhattan felony prosecution — wherein he’s accused of masking up a intercourse scandal to pave his approach to the presidency — comes as he races to fend off a monetary disaster arising from a $454 million judgment in one other case. The New York legal professional common, Letitia James, who introduced that civil fraud go well with in opposition to the previous president and his household enterprise, would possibly start to gather as quickly as Monday.
To keep away from a mortal risk to the Trump Group, Mr. Trump should persuade one other firm to put up a bond on his behalf, promising that it’ll cowl the judgment if he loses a pending attraction and fails to pay. But Mr. Trump’s legal professionals in court docket papers mentioned that securing the bond could be a “sensible impossibility,” as a result of he would want to pledge some $550 million in money and liquid investments as collateral to the bond firm — an admission that laid naked the previous president’s money crunch.
Except Mr. Trump strikes an Eleventh-hour deal, Ms. James might freeze his financial institution accounts, and start the lengthy and sophisticated strategy of seizing a few of his properties. And barring Mr. Trump’s legal professionals reaching an unbelievable authorized triumph, the choose in his felony case might set a trial date for as quickly as subsequent month.
The dual threats — on the identical day, in the identical city — crystallize two of Mr. Trump’s best and longest-held fears: a felony conviction and a public notion that he doesn’t have as a lot money as he claims.
For many years, Mr. Trump employed a broad array of techniques to maintain these fears at bay, studying from his well-connected father and his personal ruthless lawyer and fixer, Roy M. Cohn. After heading off native and federal investigations, to not point out monetary wreck, Mr. Trump got here to imagine that any issues may very well be solved by private connections — and a complete lot of cash.
“If Trump makes use of one factor to attain the sport, it has all the time been cash,” mentioned Jack O’Donnell, a former on line casino government who labored for Mr. Trump within the early Nineteen Nineties and wrote a tell-all e-book about him. “If he has more cash than somebody, he’s successful and the opposite particular person is shedding. And if somebody has more cash than Trump, he has the worry that somebody will say he’s shedding to that particular person.”
Mr. Trump himself has additionally described the disgrace of turning into a felony defendant 4 instances over. At the same time as his advisers used the indictments to nice impact in fund-raising and galvanizing his Republican base, the previous president has conceded that the fees pained him.
“No one desires to be indicted,” Mr. Trump informed reporters aboard his airplane in June. “I don’t care that my ballot numbers went up by loads. I don’t need to be indicted. I’ve by no means been indicted. I went by means of my entire life, now I get indicted each two months.”
It was a significant shock for a person who, till then, had navigated a cautious path round regulation enforcement scrutiny all through his lengthy public life.
He was investigated criminally over a land acquisition within the mid-Nineteen Seventies, but escaped unscathed. A federal particular counsel examined doable ties between the Trump 2016 marketing campaign and Russia, in addition to his effort to impede the investigation as president, and advisable no costs. He was twice impeached by a Democrat-led Home, however twice the Senate didn’t convict him.
Earlier than 2023, nothing caught.
“He’s been so fortunate, and no one’s ever had worse adversaries than this man,” mentioned Ty Cobb, a lawyer who labored within the Trump White Home throughout the particular counsel investigation and has turn into sharply crucial of the previous president.
A few of it was luck, however his public relations technique paid off as nicely. Mr. Trump deployed a mixture of bare-knuckle techniques — attacking prosecutors as “corrupt” and responsible of the identical conduct of which he was suspected — and arm-twisting appeal.
Amongst Mr. Trump’s prized relationships was with Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district legal professional for many years.
Whereas Mr. Morgenthau was in workplace, he would joke privately that his pet charity, the Police Athletic League, was the one one to which Mr. Trump routinely donated. And when Mr. Trump supported Mr. Morgenthau politically, some Trump Group officers had been informed they wanted to write down checks of their very own to the district legal professional’s marketing campaign, in line with two individuals acquainted with what passed off. (Individuals who labored with Mr. Morgenthau, who died in 2019, mentioned there was nothing instantly involving Mr. Trump that crossed their desks that may have required investigation.)
The district legal professional’s workplace, now held by Alvin L. Bragg, was the primary to indict Mr. Trump final yr earlier than different prosecutors adopted go well with. The previous president privately reacted with disbelief that his hometown district legal professional had dared to come back after him.
In 2021, when the workplace was intensifying its investigation, Mr. Trump informed an interviewer that “Bob Morgenthau wouldn’t have stood for this.”
Mr. Bragg’s case considerations a personally embarrassing episode for Mr. Trump: a $130,000 hush-money fee to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, meant to bury her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. His fixer on the time, Michael D. Cohen, made the fee. Mr. Trump, who has denied the affair, is accused of falsifying enterprise data about his reimbursement of Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Trump’s legal professionals, as they do in every of his authorized entanglements, are searching for to delay the trial previous Election Day. If Mr. Trump had been re-elected, the circumstances in opposition to him would doubtless grind to a halt.
The New York choose presiding over the case, Juan M. Merchan, just lately delayed the trial three weeks, till April 15, and the listening to on Monday will decide whether or not he postpones it additional.
Regardless of the perfect efforts of Mr. Trump’s legal professionals to delay or scuttle the case, it’s the indictment about which his advisers are the least involved. They argue it’s the least politically damaging to the presumptive Republican nominee, regardless of the personally mortifying particulars.
Nevertheless, the New York legal professional common’s civil fraud case, which accuses Mr. Trump of wildly exaggerating his internet value, has struck a very delicate nerve with the previous president.
Mr. Trump measures his wealth within the billions, a sum that largely stems from the worth of his properties. Whereas valuing actual property is extra of an artwork than a science, the legal professional common disputed a few of his purported estimates as wildly exaggerated, concluding that he inflated his internet value by as a lot as $2 billion.
After which there’s his money. Mr. Trump argues that he’s comparatively liquid for an actual property developer, stating in a deposition final yr that he had greater than $400 million in money.
Though The New York Occasions was unable to confirm the exact quantity, data and interviews present that he just lately had greater than $350 million in money in addition to shares and different investments he can promote in a rush. Whereas vital, it’s not sufficient to safe the attraction bond.
Mr. Trump is so delicate to the notion that he won’t have fairly so many billions as he claims that he as soon as sued a journalist, Timothy O’Brien, for pegging his internet value as not more than $250 million. Mr. Trump misplaced.
On the witness stand on the legal professional common’s trial, he declared that his properties had been, if something, undervalued, and that Ms. James was the actual fraud.
Sometimes, when going through outsize monetary troubles, Mr. Trump has refused to concede that something is mistaken, relationship again to when his enterprise practically collapsed within the early Nineteen Nineties. Individuals who have identified him for a few years say he has turn into accustomed to believing he can provide the looks of ready out issues till circumstances change, banking on some form of rescue on the final minute.
Within the ’90s, banks bailed him out regardless that he had massively overextended himself with a expensive improvement of the Taj Mahal on line casino in Atlantic Metropolis, N.J.
With Ms. James poised to start implementing the $454 million fraud judgment, Mr. Trump seemed to be hoping for related twists of destiny. He might, for instance, attempt to safe a mortgage from a personal fairness agency or a hedge fund. He’s additionally hoping an appeals court docket will pause the judgment.
After which there’s the windfall he might reap from his social media firm, whose shares begin buying and selling on the inventory market as early as Monday. His stake is presently valued at roughly $3 billion, but it surely would possibly come too late: He’s prohibited from promoting for six months. Whereas Mr. Trump might find ways around that restriction that allow him to make use of his stake to boost money for the attraction bond, no such deal seems imminent.
A put up on his Fact Social platform on Friday captured Mr. Trump’s insecurities. He claimed (falsely) that he had virtually $500 million in money, and likewise claimed (falsely) that he had been planning to make use of that cash to fund his personal marketing campaign; in actuality, he final spent cash on his personal candidacy in 2016, and the quantity was nonetheless nowhere close to what he had claimed he would spend.
However his put up was trustworthy about not less than one factor: To him, the $454 million judgment was a “surprising quantity.”