I Kinda Assume Michael Cohen Knows What He’s Talking About

Trump's failure to pay $464M fraud debt could open him to perjury charge: Michael Cohenhttps://t.co/1MJGlhYEvS

— Raw Story (@RawStory) March 18, 2024

 On this topic, at least. 

He's in the real estate industry. Much of his assets are leveraged," said Cohen. 

"Let's not forget, if he sells the asset there's also a tax consequence that would be due. He has long-term capital gains. Because it's New York, you also have city and state tax, so you're looking at effectively a 40 percent taxable rate. 

"He also has on top of that mortgages attached. So state taxes, federal taxes come first, then followed by the mortgage, then whatever is left over would ultimately go to pay off the judgment or to repay the bond." 

That, he explained, is why no one is taking such a deal.

This; not so much.

"It's effectively impossible. What does that tell you?" Cohen asked. "It tells you that he's not nearly as rich as he sold himself to the American people, that he — even at the trial he told the judge he had at least $400 million in cash. If that's true, post it, and if it's not true, it could be a perjury charge."

Well, he did say, outside court if not also in, that MAL alone was worth nearly $3 billion. Or at least $1.5 billion.

At Trump’s deposition in the NY case, he testified under oath that he had $400 million in cash and his net worth was minimum $3.2 billion. He said Mar-a-Lago was worth $1.5B. After reading that, I figured he could come up with bond money with what he found in his couch cushions.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 19, 2024

Or $1.5 billion. Can he not borrow against that? Was that a lie? Very likely. Was it material to the fraud case? Only insofar as it proved it (which, IIRC, Engoron noted in his judgment). Still, it must be a lie, else he could fund the bond easily. He also said there was no debt on it. Ooops! Another lie?

Yeah, probably.

'I'm confident': Alina Habba says she expects Trump's $464M debt will be dismissedhttps://t.co/XxU3aTOFED

— Raw Story (@RawStory) March 18, 2024

Which sets up this:

"Despite the fact that witnesses frankly had said that they were great clients, we all made money, they did nothing wrong, we got slammed with this egregious number, and I'm confident we'll overturn it," she said during an interview with the online podcast X22 Report, which was reported by Newsweek. 

Habba claimed in the interview that New York Attorney General Letitia James had set the Trump Organization up for certain defeat. 

"We lost before we even walked in," she said.

Does she understand the trial was for damages? That they had lost on liability before they walked in?

Anyway, the claim was fraud, which the court found was proven. If Trump indeed lied on the stand, that fraud judgment is pretty solid. Which means it’s pretty sure you aren’t going to overturn it.

Besides, Habba said Trump would come up with the bond for this case.