The former president was just ordered to pay $355 million in his New York fraud case, bringing the tally this year to nearly half a billion dollars in civil damages.

Two recent verdicts have now left Donald Trump on the hook for nearly half a billion dollars.

On Friday, a New York judge handed the former president a $355 million penalty, and banned him from serving in a leadership position in any business in New York for three years, for fraudulently inflating his net worth to lenders in order to receive more favorable loan agreements. And in January, a Manhattan jury ordered Trump to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her after she accused him of raping her. (A separate jury in May had found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s.)

…

“It’s pretty scary from an ethics perspective,” said Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group that has chronicled Trump’s abuses of power and filed lawsuits against him.

You don’t have to look far to find the reasons why. Trump’s first term was riddled with conflicts of interest, and that’s in no small part because of his financial well-being (or lack thereof, depending on how you look at it). At the time that he tried to overturn the 2020 election, he was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, largely stemming from loans to help rehabilitate his struggling businesses, and most of which would be coming due over the subsequent four years. Throughout his presidency, he refused to divest from his businesses, which made millions of dollars in revenue from taxpayers and continued to do work with other countries while he was in office — a practice he indicated he would repeat in a second term.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgEnglish
      461·
      9 months ago

      If you’re not a US citizen, then I guess it’s not your direct (financial) problem.

      Otherwise, I think the point of the article is that, if re-elected, he’s going to grift even harder than the first time by funneling even more taxpayer money into his businesses.

      Throughout his presidency, he refused to divest from his businesses, which made millions of dollars in revenue from taxpayers and continued to do work with other countries while he was in office — a practice he indicated he would repeat in a second term

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
        146·
        9 months ago

        If re-elected we’ve all of a sudden got so many more problems, his grift falls way down the list. I’m would be more concerned about ever having an election again if Trump gets back into power than I am if he self-enriches while in office.

        Him being further in debt, real debt that he actually has to put up money to deal with is absolutely fantastic. It puts him in a weaker, less flexible position for bullshit going into he election. His corruption will be on full display as he robs Peter to pay Paul.

        This article is a bit of a gaslight. Its really not our problem. Him being elected again is a much bigger problem. Him having to pay up on these debts makes that harder.

        • workerONE@lemmy.world
          61·
          9 months ago

          He was trying to get a Trump Tower in Moscow and pretty much bowing down to Putin and trying to break up NATO to help Russia. He’ll do anything for money, it’s a big problem

    • ME5SENGER_24@lemmy.world
      201·
      9 months ago

      Seriously! If I’m broke and owe people money is Trump gonna come and help me out? If not, that fucker can lie in the bed he’s made. If he can’t afford to pay, garnish his wages. At the end of the day, Trump is a regular citizen. Whether he accepts it or not is irrelevant to the facts. He might be rich (or once was) and is used to the silver spoon lifestyle, but why should that matter to me? The closest I’ll get to “silver spoon” is stainless steel. The closest this dude should get to compassion is the warm embrace of a guillotine.

      • DreamerofDays@kbin.social
        3·
        9 months ago

        When in his almost eighty years on this planet has he ever acted or been treated like a regular citizen? Regardless of what should be, and what should have been, he isn’t normal. He is, by luck, by practice, and by preternatural talent, always evading consequences.

        Those he cannot evade, he deflects onto others. So this moment of extraordinary , if his pattern holds, will also be extraordinarily laid upon others. If the GOP doesn’t find a way to remove it for him, and he doesn’t win the presidency, they know they’re in line to be footing the bill. If he does win the presidency, he’ll either evade(saying the president cannot be beholden to such a punishment and serve) or deflect, and through internal graft or external selling of favor, we’ll all end up paying his bill.

        This isn’t an argument to feel sorry for him, nor to soften the judgment against him. This is an argument to be wary that he is still the same person he was before the judgment, and is likely to be as conniving as he has always been, if not the more so if he feels cornered by it.

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
          3·
          9 months ago

          This is a pretty big lump of coal to put in his stocking. How he reacts will be interesting and we should watch it closely.

          My called shot is he just doesn’t pay. I don’t know what happens after that.