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‘Something’s Fishy Here’: Trump’s Latest $175 Million Bond Filings Questioned by Experts

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Attorneys for Donald Trump waited until less than two hours before midnight Monday to file revisions to the ex-president’s $175 million bond for the judgment in his civil fraud case after New York State Attorney General Letitia James questioned the validity of his first bond. Legal experts are now questioning details of the new bond filings. Some suggest a portion of the $175 million might also currently be in use to secure other debts or obligations.

After Trump was found liable for manipulation of his net worth in the civil business fraud case and ordered to pay a $354.9 million penalty plus interest, he was required to post bond to ensure the people of the State of New York would receive $454.2 million if his appeal is unsuccessful.

“The judge said that the former president’s ‘complete lack of contrition’ bordered on pathological,” The New York Times reported two months ago.

Trump’s attorneys later declared it impossible for him to come up with a bond of that amount, and an appeals court drastically reduced the required bond amount to $175 million.

READ MORE: ‘Your Client Is a Criminal Defendant’: Judge Denies Trump Request to Skip Trial for SCOTUS

After 10 PM Monday night, ahead of the midnight deadline, attorneys for Donald Trump in court filings said the $175 million bond is secured, and is tied to a Trump account at Charles Schwab that has over $175 million in cash, CNN reports. The filing states the California company securing the bond, Knight Specialty Insurance Company (KSIC),  has administrative access to it and can pay out the $175 million if needed.

Trump’s attorneys “asked the judge to set aside the attorney general’s challenge to the bond and award him costs and fees.”

Professor of law Andrew Weissmann, a frequent MSNBC legal analyst and former Dept. of Justice official, is raising questions.

“Something’s fishy here,” he wrote late Monday night. “If Trump has $175M free and clear, why not just directly post it and not pay a fee for a surety bond? And the agreement does not give Knight a lien on the account as collateral and seems to afford Trump a two-day window to dissipate the account.”

A screenshot of a portion of the filing, posted by MSNBC’s Lisa Rubin, states, “Schwab, as custodian of the account, has acknowledged KSIC’s right to exercise control over the account within two business days of receiving notice from KSIC of KSIC’s intent to activate the control.”

Attorney and journalist Seth Abramson in a series of posts on social media claimed, “so this is looking very bad for Donald Trump. He says in his Monday night filing that the Schwab account has $175.3 million *in total*, so *if* Axos Bank is depending on that same account for a (semi-)liquid $100M in collateral on another loan, this bond filing is DOA.”

After asking, “Is Trump double-dipping?” Abramson posted more details.

NCRM has not verified those claims.

Attorney Lupe B. Luppen adds, “it took about ten seconds from opening the account security agreement to find a significant drafting error, which makes the signature page look like it belongs to a different agreement (DJT Jr’s attestation identifies the wrong secured party—a Chubb co.).”

READ MORE: ‘Scared to Death’: GOP Ex-Congressman Brings Hammer Down on ‘Weak’ Trump

Late Monday night on MSNBC Weissmann “expressed incredulity,” as Mediaite reported, saying of Trump and his bond: “It is just so remarkable. This is somebody who has been found by two juries to have defamed somebody, who has been found to have sexually assaulted somebody – the company of which has been found criminally liable for a decade-long tax conspiracy, criminally, and has been found to have committed fraud, has to post a bond of $175 million, is on trial starting today for a criminal case involving 34 felonies.”

“And he can’t find a frigging company that is registered in New York? Meaning, that they are licensed to do business here, which it appears they are not, and that has the wherewithal to pay the money because remember, the whole point is that you either have to put up the money now or you have to find a bond company that is sufficiently liquid that the plaintiff can look to that bond company if at the end of the day the judgment is affirmed.”

Attorney General Letitia James earlier had alleged KSIC, the company that secured the bond, was not registered to do so in New York. Experts questioned the language of that filing, claiming it did not require the company that secured the bond to actually pay out $175 million should Trump lose his appeal and be ordered to pay the full amount.

Calling it a “bizarre contract,” earlier this month The Daily Beast reported, “the legal document from Knight Specialty Insurance Company doesn’t actually promise it will pay the money if the former president loses his $464 million bank fraud case on appeal. Instead, it says Trump will pay, negating the whole point of an insurance company guarantee.”

READ MORE: ‘Not a Good Start’: Judge Slams Trump’s ‘Offensive’ Recusal Claims as a ‘Loose End’

 

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Hunter Biden Plans Lawsuit Against Fox News Amid ‘Conspiracy of Disinformation’

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Attorneys for Hunter Biden have notified Fox News he plans to sue the right-wing cable TV network and its digital entities, after lawyers for the President’s son spent more than a year investigating. Among other issues the letter reportedly mentions Fox News citing a now-indicted former FBI informant, and points to “revenge porn” laws.

The letter, NBC News reports, is dated last week and specifically points to alleged bribery allegations as well as “Fox’s airing of ‘intimate images’ belonging to Hunter Biden that his lawyers claim were ‘hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated’,” that they say violate “Biden’s civil rights as well as copyright law.”

CNN, focusing in the intimate images, reports that “Hunter Biden is demanding that Fox News remove from its platforms sexually explicit images that President Joe Biden’s son says are private, according to a letter obtained by CNN, as part of his strategy to publicly fight back against conservative media.”

“The media outlet aired a mock trial of Hunter Biden on the streaming platform Fox Nation in 2022,” CNN also reports, “focused on the unproven bribery allegations, and published ‘intimate images of Mr. Biden depicting him in the nude as well as engaged in sex acts,’ according to the letter, which demands that Fox immediately remove the series from all streaming platforms.”

READ MORE: Noem Doubles Down With ‘Legal Cover’ For Shooting Her Puppy to Death

“’FOX knows that these private and confidential images were hacked, stolen, and/or manipulated digital material,’ Hunter Biden’s attorneys wrote in the letter, which contained several of the explicit images, some of which were blurred,” CNN adds. “Publishing these images, the attorneys said, violated ‘the majority of states’ laws against the nonconsensual disclosure of sexually explicit images and videos, sometimes referred to as ‘revenge porn’ laws.’ ”

In a statement Hunter Biden’s attorney, Mark Geragos, expanded on the apparently pending lawsuit.

“For the last five years, Fox News has relentlessly attacked Hunter Biden and made him a caricature in order to boost ratings and for its financial gain,” Geragos stated. “The recent indictment of FBI informant Smirnov has exposed the conspiracy of disinformation that has been fueled by Fox, enabled by their paid agents and monetized by the Fox enterprise. We plan on holding them accountable.”

Media Matters last week reported, “Fox News has mentioned Hunter Biden at least 13,440 times since January 3, 2023, when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives after promising to use their power to investigate the business interests of President Joe Biden’s son, according to a Media Matters review.”

“Fox’s on-air coverage of Hunter Biden has … plummeted in recent months,” Media Matters added. “Mentions of the president’s son on the network peaked at 2,356 in July, when his federal plea deal on two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay taxes fell apart, and mentions exceeded 1,300 in four other months, most recently in December.”

READ MORE: Peter Navarro’s Latest Attempt to Get Out of Jail Smacked Down by SCOTUS

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Peter Navarro’s Latest Attempt to Get Out of Jail Smacked Down by SCOTUS

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Former top Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro, in prison for criminal contempt of Congress, has failed in his latest attempt to be released early, after the U.S. Supreme Court once again denied his request.

Navarro, 74, the first and only former White House official ever to be imprisoned for contempt of Congress, is serving out his four-month sentence in Miami. His efforts to stay out of jail were first denied by Chief Justice John Roberts, before he reported to the prison in mid-March. He was found guilty in September after a short trial. After his arrest he hawked his book and begged for money on national television.

CBS News reports “15 days into his sentence, Navarro renewed his request to halt his surrender to Justice Neil Gorsuch, which is allowed under Supreme Court rules. His bid for emergency relief was referred to the full court, which denied it. There were no noted dissents. Attorneys for Navarro declined to comment.”

CNN called the decision to petition Justice Gorsuch “a procedural maneuver that has not worked in decades.”

RELATED: ‘Bro, You’re Already Facing Charges’: Protestor Mocks Peter Navarro as He Tries to Grab ‘Trump Lost’ Sign

“Gorsuch referred the request to the full court, which considered it during its closed door conference on Friday. The court denied the request on Monday without comment.”

Navarro’s prison sentence is the result of his refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Navarro claims he had executive privilege, but offered no proof, and refused to show up as ordered.

Legal experts accurately had predicted a “quick conviction” after Navarro, called a “conspiracy theorist” who promotes “fringe” economic theories, had called no witnesses. The jury deliberated for under five hours. He faced up to two years in prison.

CBS News adds Navarro “is not the only member of the Trump administration to be convicted of the charge. Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist, was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress and sentenced to four months in prison. The judge overseeing that case, however, put his prison term on hold while Bannon appeals.”

READ MORE: Noem Doubles Down With ‘Legal Cover’ For Shooting Her Puppy to Death

 

 

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Noem Doubles Down With ‘Legal Cover’ For Shooting Her Puppy to Death

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South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem has been under bipartisan fire since Friday after an excerpt from her soon-to-be published book reveals her bragging about shooting to death her 14-month old puppy, and later that day, a goat. Noem, considered at least until last week a top contender to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, is doubling-down defending herself but now she’s serving up some “legal cover” as well.

“I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book — No Going Back. The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned,” she wrote on Sunday, after The Guardian‘s damning report. “The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.”

Law & Crime on Monday reports the governor is “providing herself legal cover for the act.”

Noem “acknowledged that ‘some people’ were upset about the story — and she specified that it happened two decades ago, seeming to place the incident well beyond the statute of limitations.”

RELATED: Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

“Noem additionally cited South Dakota law in support of her decision,” Law & Crime adds, noting the “reported book excerpt had said that Cricket tried to bite Noem and attacked her chickens.”

“The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down,” Noem wrote, an apparent attempt to preempt any possible legal issues. “Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.”

Law & Crime explains that “South Dakota notes that an exemption to animal cruelty laws is the ‘destruction of dangerous animals.’ The law specifies that ‘[a]ny humane killing of an animal’ and ‘[a]ny reasonable action taken by a person for the destruction or control of an animal known to be dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property’ are exempt from prosecution.”

Noting that Noem’s attempt “to lean into the right’s embrace of political incorrectness … didn’t fly with members of her own party,” The Daily Beast pointed to well-known Republicans including former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farrah Griffin and Meghan McCain who publicly condemned Noem’s actions.

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

The Guardian’s excerpt from Noem’s book does not state that Cricket bit people, although Noem states Cricket “whipped around” to bite her. It’s possible biting others is in the book but did not make it into The Guardian’s report.

Describing Cricket killing chickens, Noem “grabbed Cricket, she says, [and] the dog ‘whipped around to bite me’. Then, as the chickens’ owner wept, Noem repeatedly apologised, wrote the shocked family a check ‘for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime’.”

“Through it all, Noem says, Cricket was ‘the picture of pure joy’,” The Guardian reports. “’I hated that dog,’ Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself ‘untrainable’, ‘dangerous to anyone she came in contact with’ and ‘less than worthless … as a hunting dog’.”

Meanwhile, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Monday said Noem’s pride and decision making surrounding killing the puppy make her unfit to be “in charge.”

Describing how she grew up on a family farm, Brzezinski said they hunted, and “there was absolutely a dense of life and death.” There was “never a joy in killing and there was a respect to it, and a process if you were hunting.”

READ MORE: CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

“But this story was more about how she felt killing an animal, and that’s what’s scary about it – the impatience, kind of like a switch flipped in her brain and she decided she needed to kill it? Like this is not someone you want in charge, not someone thinking through the process of life and death.”

“The most remarkable part of it,” Scarborough added, “is that the conservative movement has been so corrupted by Donald Trump and his reached such new lows, that she actually put that in, about the killing of a happy puppy because she thought it would help her with the base.”

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