Some Of What I’ve Been Saying

'That's actually not the case': Ex-Trump campaign adviser shut down by Anderson Cooper https://t.co/hneFQNzhKd

— Raw Story (@RawStory) January 27, 2024

He did this last summer when a jury awarded Carroll $5 million after a separate jury found Trump defamed her. (He's appealing that decision also.) Another way would be to secure a bond and pay a fraction of the total and also leverage some of his non-liquid assets as collateral. This may have Trump seeking a lender to square away some of the monies while he battles for a better fate.

First, I stand corrected. I didn’t realize Trump had appealed the earlier decision. I did know he got in trouble with the court monitor for funding that bond without first notifying her. I had thought he was paying the judgment, not funding an appeal bond 

His options now are to pony up the judgment amount, or get a bonding company to loan him the money. With the NY fraud judgment coming any day now, the odds of that happening are zip and none. All of Trump’s assets are effectively spoken for. Nobody’s going to pony up for Trump on this one, much less for the appeal for the likely $250 million judgment looming.

Trump can always appeal, but without the bond, the plaintiff can work to collect judgment. And the odds are good Trump loses the appeals. 

As for the punitive damages:

“I think even those in the courtroom when they heard that number gasped how outrageous it was, right," he said during an appearance on the cable network. "The punitive damages are so high that it's guaranteed it'll be reversed on appeal."

The jury found Trump liable for $18.3 million in actual damages, and added $65 million in punitive damages, which is less than 4 times the amount of actual damages. The Supreme Court rule of thumb is that punitive damages should not exceed single digit multipliers of the actual damages. This award is well within that limit.

Whether they actually appeal the punitive damages will depend on whether they ask Kaplan to lower them. If they don’t, they can’t raise the issue on appeal. If they do and Kaplan denies their request, it isn’t likely to win in appeal. Kaplan knows the law and doesn’t want a reversal if he can help it. I could be wrong, but Kaplan probably won’t be.

The only other way out from under this judgment is to declare bankruptcy. And I think Trump would rather slit his own throat.