It's going to get worse as Western economies move away from fossil fuel based transportation.
Don't get me wrong,i think we will always use oil, just not in the levels required to support multiple economies
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Opinion INTERNATIONAL Politics: Adelaide Board Discussion Part 5
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Don't get me wrong,i think we will always use oil, just not in the levels required to support multiple economies
OMG. I've said that over and over without ever meaning it of course.
But imagine the world without their hatred and only mainly Russia N Korea China and a Trump led USA to keep in check - still an unsolvable problem.
History tells you one thing. Civilisations will rise and others will fall. The world will never be at peace. War will always be a thing. Experts have found that since humans have been around, its estimated of all the thousands of years we've existed, just 280 of those years we have been at peace.
We're an island nation dependent on sea trade
We'll get blocked sea lanes and missiles
Trump is likely to be in Jail this time next week.
He was given a gag order but yet its alleged he has violated it over a dozen times. There is also the very real prospect of Jury intimidation charges being thrown his way as well. Especially with suspicions of why Juror number 2 left. Fox news did a whole segment on the jurors basically leaving nothing to the imagination, including talking about their job.
So each side can only contest 10 jurors each. Trumps side couldn't appeal number 2. So it is interesting how and why it ended up as a fox news segment.
I get judges have been reluctant to place him in jail because they don't want to be seen to interfere in a democratic election and I think Trump knows this and is outright abusing this privilege. But I can see at some point a judge is going to tell him to STFU and put him in cuffs. If he is found in contempt next week this will certainly be the case.
He was given a gag order but yet its alleged he has violated it over a dozen times. There is also the very real prospect of Jury intimidation charges being thrown his way as well. Especially with suspicions of why Juror number 2 left. Fox news did a whole segment on the jurors basically leaving nothing to the imagination, including talking about their job.
So each side can only contest 10 jurors each. Trumps side couldn't appeal number 2. So it is interesting how and why it ended up as a fox news segment.
I get judges have been reluctant to place him in jail because they don't want to be seen to interfere in a democratic election and I think Trump knows this and is outright abusing this privilege. But I can see at some point a judge is going to tell him to STFU and put him in cuffs. If he is found in contempt next week this will certainly be the case.
Trump is not going to jail.
Yes, next week. A gag order is a gag order. There is no law manipulation the judge can hide behind. If he is found guilty of breaking the gag order and there is evidence the only decision is jail through contempt of court. Thats how it works. He will be in jail next week.
Has he broken that order? I bloody hope so.
Yes the Prosecutor has already added over a dozen counts of breaking the gag order to the hearing. So even if he is found guilty of just one, its jail. Thats how contempt of court works. Its not a fine, its not home detention, its literally jail. It maybe just a day or a week but it will still be jail.
He'll almost certainly be fined for contempt of court. If he repeats it, then he might be sent to the big house to cool his heels.
He could very well end up there, if found guilty - but we're a long way from that point right now.
not really. he is clearly a repeat offender and most people would be in jail for disobeying a gag order. I think this judge is going to set a strict standard.
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Doubt it.
Given how useless our Governments have been with defence we should hope the unlikely chance of us getting invaded continues
If the so-called Knight Bond is rejected by Judge Arthur Engoron on Monday, April 22, Trump’s real estate empire could begin its final collapse by the end of the month. But the bond appears to be DOA.
Introduction
Proof has offered the most extensive coverage of the Trump Bond Crisis-cum-Trump Bond War of any media outlet in the United States.But now the Trump Bond War is coming to a head. The future of Donald Trump’s real estate empire—such as it is—will be determined in New York City on April 22, 2024, assuming Trump and his legal team were telling the truth when they submitted to Judge Arthur Engoron that no bank or insurance carrier in the world would loan any money to Trump for a civil bond other than Knight Specialty Insurance Company.
The CEO of that company, Don Hankey, is a Trump mega-donor who has bailed him out of at least two major financial jams in the past and (as the reports above confirm) has lied to the public from the start about his involvement in bonding Trump here.
These lies have had the effect of confirming that, right now, no one but Hankey would loan money to Trump.
So here are the latest details on the course of self-destruction that is clearly weighing on Trump every bit as much as his pending criminal trial in Manhattan—and perhaps more so. What we find in the discussion below are at least 25 major (and disqualifying) issues with the so-called Knight Bond, but also two more that Proof has exclusively uncovered, both of which may come to the fore in court tomorrow. They could also indicate far deeper issues with the Knight Bond than anyone had previously imagined.
Already-Known Problems With the Knight Bond
New York Attorney General Letitia James has now summarized the problems with the Knight Bond in a 26-page filing that asks Judge Engoron to (a) reject it, (b) give Trump seven days to secure a new bond, and (c) order that, should he fail to do so, the New York Attorney General’s Office (hereafter “NYAG”) is authorized to begin its seizure of Trump’s New York properties in fulfillment of a nearly half-a-billion-dollar civil judgment against him, his kids, and the Trump Organization for their years and years of Fraud against both American banks and the United States federal government.{Note: The below list is sourced from the link above, as well as the reports here and here, and finally via all of the major-media links that are contained in-line in the list below.}
- Knight Specialty Insurance Company lacks the capital to back the bond;
- Knight is not authorized to write sureties in the State of New York;
- Knight has not been subject to regulation by New York state to ensure its past and present compliance with business standards in the state;
- the company has never written a surety bond in New York state;
- it’s been at least two years since Knight wrote a surety bond in any state;
- Knight is part of the Hankey Group, which has been flagged by federal regulators for serious and systemic misconduct in the past;
- Knight, in the corrected filing of its bond—its initial filing was missing several required elements—showed $537 million in total assets as of December 31, 2023, but its cash-on-hand was just $138 million, an amount less than the face value of the bond (which is $175 million), a capitalization defect that cannot be resolved in the way Knight claims it can, by counting the capitalization of Knight’s parent company (which isn’t a party to the bond);
- Knight wrote the bond in a way that makes it null and void, as it doesn’t actually put Knight on the hook for the full $454 million if Trump does not pay;
- the Charles Schwab fund that Trump allegedly put up as cash collateral for the bond was last fully assessed, as to its value, in 1994, meaning that it may not still be worth the $175.3 million Trump and his team (and for that matter Hankey) are claiming;
- Trump has made no representation to the court about whether any collateral he proposes to use for the bond is unencumbered (that is, whether it’s already been reserved for repayment to another lender, should certain circumstances spring, as if it has, that lender may have what is called a “prior perfected security interest” in money that Trump is now falsely claiming is unencumbered);
- the Schwab fund, known as the DJT Trust, is still under Mr. Trump’s rather than Mr. Hankey’s control, and the New York Attorney General understandably argues that the trust must be fully signed over to Knight Specialty Insurance Company for either Trump or Knight to contend that the bond has been properly collateralized (as the NYAG seems to presume, as does Proof—see more below—that Trump actually can’t sign over the Schwab fund, for reasons he’s hiding from the court);
- because the fund in question allegedly has only $175.3 million in it, the NYAG argues that should Trump (a) make withdrawals from the fund, (b) replace assets in the fund with others subject to the whims of the stock market, or simply (c) experience stock-market losses sufficient to bring the fund under $175 million—which is so likely to happen, given the fund’s current alleged value, that it actually may be happening, in real time, several times every day—it may not be properly collateralizing a $175 million debt;
- Hankey admits that he “didn’t charge enough” for the bond—though he won’t disclose what he actually charged his political hero, if anything at all—which the NYAG argues means that Trump could make money on the bond deal, as the fund Knight inexplicably allowed him to retain ownership of could make more in interest than Trump paid Knight (which would make the entire deal financially nonsensical for Knight and raise the question of whether Hankey had engaged in it for corrupt rather than business reasons, for example to enrich Mr. Trump through what amounted to a Bribery scheme which, down the line, would result in favorable policies for Knight in a hypothetical second Trump administration);
- Knight has failed to meet a restriction under New York insurance law that bars companies from putting more than 10% of their capital at risk, and since Knight has only a $138 million surplus the bond deal is already in violation of state law;
- as summarized by CBS News, the NYAG also argues “that Knight relies on risk transfer practices that work to ‘artificially’ bolster its surplus”and that these practices too might be in violation of New York law;
- separate from any pending federal investigations of any component of the Hankey Group, the NYAG broadly “argues that Knight’s management is untrustworthy, [having] violat[ed] federal law ‘on multiple occasions over the last several years’”;
- under the implied catch-all provision of New York state’s so-called justificationprotocols, Trump has not made the case that this ensurer is the appropriate one for this bond, as the court must—as a matter of equity—find the surety suitable for the equitable (rather than, in legal parlance, merely the legal) interest New York state has in being paid the funds it is owed by Trump, his children, and the Trump Organization (and indeed, it was in contemplation of this payment that Judge Engoron showed mercy to the Trump Organization, most notably by not issuing a “corporate death penalty” that would forbid it from ever again doing business in New York);
- it is not clear that any of the details of this bond were run past Judge Barbara Jones, the independent Trump Organization monitor Judge Engoron ordered, who is supposed to have unfettered visibility into any transaction the Trump Organization engages in as well as the ability to veto such transactions (or to bring them to the court for review, if Trump Organization executives object to her veto;
- even if Knight’s creative, Cayman Islands-hosted accounting practices are not illegal, the fact that—as ABC News reports—they “use affiliates in the Cayman Islands to reduce the liabilities shown on their books” means that it’s impossible for the NYAG to properly investigate Knight’s financials on the short turnaround this case requires of it (as that investigation would necessarily be international);
- the notice provision in the Knight Bond requires that Knight give Trump “two days’ notice” before withdrawing any money from the Schwab fund, which appears to be calculated to ensure that Trump could withdraw all money from the fund during that period, and thereby ensure that all collateral for the bond (and all payment to the State of New York) would suddenly disappear from the view of the NYAG and perhaps even from the reach of New York state courts, were it to be summarily transferred overseas);
- Trump and his legal team may have lied to the New York appellate courts to get this bond in the first instance, as Hankey recently revealed (see the prior Proofreports in the Bibiography for more) that he told Trump he would work with him on a $454 million bond before Trump and his team made their representation to an appellate court in New York that they couldn’t find anyone to do so (which false claim may have been what caused that appellate court to drop Trump’s bond from $454 million to $175 million in the first instance, meaning that the bond should now be restored to its prior level and Trump’s lawyers investigated by the New York State Bar Association for misleading the courts or, less egregiously but still unethically, failing in their inalterable professional duty to correct the record);
- separate from the “security” of the still-Trump-held collateral, the NYAG opines that the Schwab fund is inadequately “ascertainable” as to its valueto qualify as legally sufficient collateral, meaning that a fund with stocks in it definitionally can’t be given a firm value, and when the value in question is so close to the minimum value the case at bar requires, this creates a legal insufficiency that can only be remedied with a different form of collateralization;
- separate from matters of “security” and “ascertainability,” the NYAG allegesthat the financial information thus far provided regarding the collateralization of the bond is “vague, incomplete, and inconclusive” (which would mean that Trump must first provide much more hard data and paperwork relating to the DJT Trust before a court can approve it as a source fund for anycollateralization; as FT reports, Trump has only provided “one screenshot”of the trust’s account balance);
- there may be other individuals—including Trump’s children—with access to and authority over the DJT Trust (and if even a single additional person has authority over those funds, it means that Trump is estopped from representing that he can assure the court that the trust will have the required funds in it when the time to pay New York state finally comes, if it comes); and
- because the Hankey Group has repeatedly had to pay tens of millions of dollars in federal fines due to its past misconduct, the court can’t have any certainty that it won’t have to do so once again between today’s date and the date on which it suddenly needs to cover Trump’s judgment—should Trump refuse to pay or be unable to pay on that date—meaning that even if Knight were collateralized properly in 2024, its past misconduct suggests it might not be so in a future year.
Those 25 Issues Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg
As Proof has exclusively reported, the twenty-five reasons to reject the Knight Bond above are just the tip of the iceberg—and that’s without taking into account the new allegations of a fraudulent $50 million Trump loan that call into question anyfinancial deal struck by the man in 2024.Documents tracked down by Proof indicate that the Schwab funds Trump swore to the court were free and clear are in fact likely already encumbered to another lender—to wit, another company in the Hankey Group. See the loan paperwork below (from the 2021 rescue of Trump’s ownership of Trump Tower by none other than Don Hankey, in the form of Axos Bank, a bank for which Don Hankey is by far the leading funder):
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By comparison, if Trump had tried to pull a stunt like this with a fund whose security interests were held in part by someone other than Don Hankey, he would have been called out immediately (likely via an emergency injunction filing by the other lender).
More troublingly, this raises the question of whether Trump engaged in a small-c “conspiracy”—which may or may not have criminal dimensions—with Hankey to pass a fraudulent surety in New York, which conspiracy would have required both men to know in advance that they would be working together on this bond from the jump (despite claims from both, and agents for both, in representations to the courts and to media and to the public, that they fortuitously found one another only after Trump had made good-faith efforts to find another lender).
But it gets worse.
It’s not only likely that other individuals besides Trump have access to this Schwab fund; it’s not only likely that the fund is under-resourced based on the paperwork above (as if Axos Bank as a $100 million interest in it, the fund must have a minimum of $275 million in it to also be able to bear a second Hankey Group interest now being attached to it, and the screenshot Trump provided showed a balance of only $175 million); it’s that there’s almost no chance that this account currently has $175 million in it.
As Proof exclusively documented, this filing—which is in the possession of the NYAG—appears to indicate that the DJT Trust has nowhere near $175 million in assets, which may be why Trump and his team did no more than offer a single dodgy-looking screenshot of it. This could constitute yet another fraud on the court, yet another possible criminal act, yet another indication of illicit collusion between Trump and Hankey, and another potentially disbarrable offense on the part of Trump’s lawyers.
Here are the relevant claims in Trump’s filing in this case:
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And once again, this is a Proof exclusive.
It turns out that the DJT Trust is the same fund Trump has used for criminal purposes in the past. Take a look at this:
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In other words, in addition to the twenty-five reasons listed above for this bond to be rejected on April 22; in addition to the additional reasons provided in this section—i.e., Trump appears to be double-dipping in this account, and the account is therefore under-resourced by at least $100 million—we now also have the stunning fact that the former President of the United States is trying to use an account he’s currently on trial in criminal court in New York for misusing to collateralize a bond in a current civil case in New York.
If this isn’t a historic level of chutzpah, I don’t know what would be.
Far more importantly, it underscores that Judge Engoron shouldn’t want or allow this fund to play any role in his case whatsoever, as it’s tainted by current allegationsof criminal conduct with respect to its operation—allegations involving the same defendant.
Conclusion
No one knows what will happen on Monday, April 22. But what we do know is this:- There are dozens of reasons for the Knight Bond to be rejected;
- if the bond is rejected, there’s no evidence Trump will be able to get another one (based on his own representations of not being able to find any lender besides his self-acknowledged “lender of last resort”, Don Hankey);
- if Trump can’t get another bond, New York Attorney General Letitia James will begin dismantling Trump’s real estate empire in New York by the end of April;
- as Proof has shown (see reports above in the Bibliography), Trump’s real estate empire is much smaller than people realize—he owns very few buildings in New York, and those buildings are worth nothing like what he has claimed for years they are—which means that it could ultimately require almost the entirety of the Trump empire inside the United States (Mar-a-Lago excluded) to cover the nearly half a billion dollars Trump owes in this one civil case in New York; and
- should Trump contest any of the facts above, the odds that new facts will emerge about how this bond came about—facts that could point to additional crimes or civil misconduct by Trump or his allies—are high, meaning Trump cannot now defend himself in this Bond War without incurring significant risk of additional legal exposure.
While Trump’s trial on 34 felonies in Manhattan appears on its surface to be a much greater threat to Trump than his civil case in New York does, as the former implicates his very liberty, the political consequences of Trump’s civil case may be much greater.
While Trumpists generally see his criminal charges in New York City as occupying a space apart from their image of the former president—after all, the so-called (wildly misnamed) “hush-money” case is “merely” about Trump lying repeatedly to American voters in 2016 to try to gain election to the White House, a position he knew he would never attain if he were honest with voters about his illicit sexual activities during his current wife’s pregnancy with Barron—it’s much harder for anyone to question, even fancifully, the symbolism of Trump’s civil fraud case in New York. Trump manifestly lied about the value of his empire to both banks and the federal government for years, and in a truly merciful judgment it’s not at all clear Trump deserved, Judge Engoron opted merely to fine Trump an amount he had already said he could easily pay rather than ban Trump’s entire company from doing business in New York forever.
Should Judge Engoron have known Trump was lying to him about the amount of cash he had ready to pay a civil judgment? Yes, of course. But that’s neither here nor there: the simple fact is that this case has now revealed that Trump is all but bankrupt, can’t find a lender of any legitimacy, and is about to have his entire financial superstructure decimated in full view of the public—which decimation will also, in the bargain, reveal it was never worth anywhere close to what people (including his fans) thought.
Now add to all of the above that Trump is about to lose the funding for his legal fees.
That’s right: Trump faces jail; old and new gag orders; his first personal bankruptcy; another business bankruptcy; the demolition of his real estate empire; the revelation of how little he and his empire were ever worth; and the inability to pay his legal fees, which are already staggering—and will grow by many tens of millions this year alone.
And Trump may soon face an inability to properly fund his presidential campaign, too.
So it may be that the court hearing in New York City on Monday, April 22, 2024 that’s most important to Donald Trump’s future isn’t the first day of his trial on 34 felonies but the one whose conclusion could mark the beginning of the end for Trump’s brand.
And as America learned long ago, Donald Trump is nothing if not his brand. In fact, it increasingly seems like “Trump” was never anything more than a brand to begin with.
Do you ever wonder why the CCP is busy trying to seduce a number of our Pacific neighbours? Solomon's is good case in point. They've been aggressive in PNG as well.
Busy trying to establish port facilities in the Pacific, with potential longer term options to create naval bases?
The CCP now has a larger navy by tonnage than the US, which I don't think takes into account their 'coast guard' service which is essentially a branch of their navy.
Do you really think Australian defence forces pivot towards our navy is to operate freedom of navigation exercises through the South China Sea?
Australia currently has 27 days supply of diesel domestically and not much more of petrol. That scenario doesn't look like changing anytime soon. Wouldn't take much to mess with us.
And most of our fuel comes from Singapore, and has to pass through the choke points in the Indonesian Archipelago, making our supplies incredibly vulnerable.
And our strategic supplies are held in the US
Less vulnerable, given that the routes between the US and Australia don't go anywhere near the islands. However, the transit across the Pacific is still a very long one.
If the CCP starts establishing naval bases through the Pacific it could become problematic
Even more reasons to get off our dependency for fossil fuels on non essential transport.
I have to admit, i find it baffling as an Island Nation we are not proficient in the construction of anti ship and anti submarine explosives.
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Wow Seth sure is a thorough investigator!If the so-called Knight Bond is rejected by Judge Arthur Engoron on Monday, April 22, Trump’s real estate empire could begin its final collapse by the end of the month. But the bond appears to be DOA.
Introduction
Proof has offered the most extensive coverage of the Trump Bond Crisis-cum-Trump Bond War of any media outlet in the United States.
But now the Trump Bond War is coming to a head. The future of Donald Trump’s real estate empire—such as it is—will be determined in New York City on April 22, 2024, assuming Trump and his legal team were telling the truth when they submitted to Judge Arthur Engoron that no bank or insurance carrier in the world would loan any money to Trump for a civil bond other than Knight Specialty Insurance Company.
The CEO of that company, Don Hankey, is a Trump mega-donor who has bailed him out of at least two major financial jams in the past and (as the reports above confirm) has lied to the public from the start about his involvement in bonding Trump here.
These lies have had the effect of confirming that, right now, no one but Hankey would loan money to Trump.
So here are the latest details on the course of self-destruction that is clearly weighing on Trump every bit as much as his pending criminal trial in Manhattan—and perhaps more so. What we find in the discussion below are at least 25 major (and disqualifying) issues with the so-called Knight Bond, but also two more that Proof has exclusively uncovered, both of which may come to the fore in court tomorrow. They could also indicate far deeper issues with the Knight Bond than anyone had previously imagined.
Already-Known Problems With the Knight Bond
New York Attorney General Letitia James has now summarized the problems with the Knight Bond in a 26-page filing that asks Judge Engoron to (a) reject it, (b) give Trump seven days to secure a new bond, and (c) order that, should he fail to do so, the New York Attorney General’s Office (hereafter “NYAG”) is authorized to begin its seizure of Trump’s New York properties in fulfillment of a nearly half-a-billion-dollar civil judgment against him, his kids, and the Trump Organization for their years and years of Fraud against both American banks and the United States federal government.
{Note: The below list is sourced from the link above, as well as the reports here and here, and finally via all of the major-media links that are contained in-line in the list below.}
- Knight Specialty Insurance Company lacks the capital to back the bond;
- Knight is not authorized to write sureties in the State of New York;
- Knight has not been subject to regulation by New York state to ensure its past and present compliance with business standards in the state;
- the company has never written a surety bond in New York state;
- it’s been at least two years since Knight wrote a surety bond in any state;
- Knight is part of the Hankey Group, which has been flagged by federal regulators for serious and systemic misconduct in the past;
- Knight, in the corrected filing of its bond—its initial filing was missing several required elements—showed $537 million in total assets as of December 31, 2023, but its cash-on-hand was just $138 million, an amount less than the face value of the bond (which is $175 million), a capitalization defect that cannot be resolved in the way Knight claims it can, by counting the capitalization of Knight’s parent company (which isn’t a party to the bond);
- Knight wrote the bond in a way that makes it null and void, as it doesn’t actually put Knight on the hook for the full $454 million if Trump does not pay;
- the Charles Schwab fund that Trump allegedly put up as cash collateral for the bond was last fully assessed, as to its value, in 1994, meaning that it may not still be worth the $175.3 million Trump and his team (and for that matter Hankey) are claiming;
- Trump has made no representation to the court about whether any collateral he proposes to use for the bond is unencumbered (that is, whether it’s already been reserved for repayment to another lender, should certain circumstances spring, as if it has, that lender may have what is called a “prior perfected security interest” in money that Trump is now falsely claiming is unencumbered);
- the Schwab fund, known as the DJT Trust, is still under Mr. Trump’s rather than Mr. Hankey’s control, and the New York Attorney General understandably argues that the trust must be fully signed over to Knight Specialty Insurance Company for either Trump or Knight to contend that the bond has been properly collateralized (as the NYAG seems to presume, as does Proof—see more below—that Trump actually can’t sign over the Schwab fund, for reasons he’s hiding from the court);
- because the fund in question allegedly has only $175.3 million in it, the NYAG argues that should Trump (a) make withdrawals from the fund, (b) replace assets in the fund with others subject to the whims of the stock market, or simply (c) experience stock-market losses sufficient to bring the fund under $175 million—which is so likely to happen, given the fund’s current alleged value, that it actually may be happening, in real time, several times every day—it may not be properly collateralizing a $175 million debt;
- Hankey admits that he “didn’t charge enough” for the bond—though he won’t disclose what he actually charged his political hero, if anything at all—which the NYAG argues means that Trump could make money on the bond deal, as the fund Knight inexplicably allowed him to retain ownership of could make more in interest than Trump paid Knight (which would make the entire deal financially nonsensical for Knight and raise the question of whether Hankey had engaged in it for corrupt rather than business reasons, for example to enrich Mr. Trump through what amounted to a Bribery scheme which, down the line, would result in favorable policies for Knight in a hypothetical second Trump administration);
- Knight has failed to meet a restriction under New York insurance law that bars companies from putting more than 10% of their capital at risk, and since Knight has only a $138 million surplus the bond deal is already in violation of state law;
- as summarized by CBS News, the NYAG also argues “that Knight relies on risk transfer practices that work to ‘artificially’ bolster its surplus”and that these practices too might be in violation of New York law;
- separate from any pending federal investigations of any component of the Hankey Group, the NYAG broadly “argues that Knight’s management is untrustworthy, [having] violat[ed] federal law ‘on multiple occasions over the last several years’”;
- under the implied catch-all provision of New York state’s so-called justificationprotocols, Trump has not made the case that this ensurer is the appropriate one for this bond, as the court must—as a matter of equity—find the surety suitable for the equitable (rather than, in legal parlance, merely the legal) interest New York state has in being paid the funds it is owed by Trump, his children, and the Trump Organization (and indeed, it was in contemplation of this payment that Judge Engoron showed mercy to the Trump Organization, most notably by not issuing a “corporate death penalty” that would forbid it from ever again doing business in New York);
- it is not clear that any of the details of this bond were run past Judge Barbara Jones, the independent Trump Organization monitor Judge Engoron ordered, who is supposed to have unfettered visibility into any transaction the Trump Organization engages in as well as the ability to veto such transactions (or to bring them to the court for review, if Trump Organization executives object to her veto;
- even if Knight’s creative, Cayman Islands-hosted accounting practices are not illegal, the fact that—as ABC News reports—they “use affiliates in the Cayman Islands to reduce the liabilities shown on their books” means that it’s impossible for the NYAG to properly investigate Knight’s financials on the short turnaround this case requires of it (as that investigation would necessarily be international);
- the notice provision in the Knight Bond requires that Knight give Trump “two days’ notice” before withdrawing any money from the Schwab fund, which appears to be calculated to ensure that Trump could withdraw all money from the fund during that period, and thereby ensure that all collateral for the bond (and all payment to the State of New York) would suddenly disappear from the view of the NYAG and perhaps even from the reach of New York state courts, were it to be summarily transferred overseas);
- Trump and his legal team may have lied to the New York appellate courts to get this bond in the first instance, as Hankey recently revealed (see the prior Proofreports in the Bibiography for more) that he told Trump he would work with him on a $454 million bond before Trump and his team made their representation to an appellate court in New York that they couldn’t find anyone to do so (which false claim may have been what caused that appellate court to drop Trump’s bond from $454 million to $175 million in the first instance, meaning that the bond should now be restored to its prior level and Trump’s lawyers investigated by the New York State Bar Association for misleading the courts or, less egregiously but still unethically, failing in their inalterable professional duty to correct the record);
- separate from the “security” of the still-Trump-held collateral, the NYAG opines that the Schwab fund is inadequately “ascertainable” as to its valueto qualify as legally sufficient collateral, meaning that a fund with stocks in it definitionally can’t be given a firm value, and when the value in question is so close to the minimum value the case at bar requires, this creates a legal insufficiency that can only be remedied with a different form of collateralization;
- separate from matters of “security” and “ascertainability,” the NYAG allegesthat the financial information thus far provided regarding the collateralization of the bond is “vague, incomplete, and inconclusive” (which would mean that Trump must first provide much more hard data and paperwork relating to the DJT Trust before a court can approve it as a source fund for anycollateralization; as FT reports, Trump has only provided “one screenshot”of the trust’s account balance);
- there may be other individuals—including Trump’s children—with access to and authority over the DJT Trust (and if even a single additional person has authority over those funds, it means that Trump is estopped from representing that he can assure the court that the trust will have the required funds in it when the time to pay New York state finally comes, if it comes); and
- because the Hankey Group has repeatedly had to pay tens of millions of dollars in federal fines due to its past misconduct, the court can’t have any certainty that it won’t have to do so once again between today’s date and the date on which it suddenly needs to cover Trump’s judgment—should Trump refuse to pay or be unable to pay on that date—meaning that even if Knight were collateralized properly in 2024, its past misconduct suggests it might not be so in a future year.
Those 25 Issues Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg
As Proof has exclusively reported, the twenty-five reasons to reject the Knight Bond above are just the tip of the iceberg—and that’s without taking into account the new allegations of a fraudulent $50 million Trump loan that call into question anyfinancial deal struck by the man in 2024.
Documents tracked down by Proof indicate that the Schwab funds Trump swore to the court were free and clear are in fact likely already encumbered to another lender—to wit, another company in the Hankey Group. See the loan paperwork below (from the 2021 rescue of Trump’s ownership of Trump Tower by none other than Don Hankey, in the form of Axos Bank, a bank for which Don Hankey is by far the leading funder):
What this suggests is that (a) Donald Trump well knew the DJT Trust was already encumbered, but also that (b) he suspected Hankey wouldn’t complain about this as another insurer might have done because Hankey was the lender in both cases.
By comparison, if Trump had tried to pull a stunt like this with a fund whose security interests were held in part by someone other than Don Hankey, he would have been called out immediately (likely via an emergency injunction filing by the other lender).
More troublingly, this raises the question of whether Trump engaged in a small-c “conspiracy”—which may or may not have criminal dimensions—with Hankey to pass a fraudulent surety in New York, which conspiracy would have required both men to know in advance that they would be working together on this bond from the jump (despite claims from both, and agents for both, in representations to the courts and to media and to the public, that they fortuitously found one another only after Trump had made good-faith efforts to find another lender).
But it gets worse.
It’s not only likely that other individuals besides Trump have access to this Schwab fund; it’s not only likely that the fund is under-resourced based on the paperwork above (as if Axos Bank as a $100 million interest in it, the fund must have a minimum of $275 million in it to also be able to bear a second Hankey Group interest now being attached to it, and the screenshot Trump provided showed a balance of only $175 million); it’s that there’s almost no chance that this account currently has $175 million in it.
As Proof exclusively documented, this filing—which is in the possession of the NYAG—appears to indicate that the DJT Trust has nowhere near $175 million in assets, which may be why Trump and his team did no more than offer a single dodgy-looking screenshot of it. This could constitute yet another fraud on the court, yet another possible criminal act, yet another indication of illicit collusion between Trump and Hankey, and another potentially disbarrable offense on the part of Trump’s lawyers.
Here are the relevant claims in Trump’s filing in this case:
And once again, this is a Proof exclusive.
It turns out that the DJT Trust is the same fund Trump has used for criminal purposes in the past. Take a look at this:
That’s right: the criminal trial on 34 felonies that Trump is currently sitting throughwas necessitated by his use of this very same fund to pay Stormy Daniels through Trump’s since-convicted pal, fixer, Trump Organization employee, and lawyer Michael Cohen.
In other words, in addition to the twenty-five reasons listed above for this bond to be rejected on April 22; in addition to the additional reasons provided in this section—i.e., Trump appears to be double-dipping in this account, and the account is therefore under-resourced by at least $100 million—we now also have the stunning fact that the former President of the United States is trying to use an account he’s currently on trial in criminal court in New York for misusing to collateralize a bond in a current civil case in New York.
If this isn’t a historic level of chutzpah, I don’t know what would be.
Far more importantly, it underscores that Judge Engoron shouldn’t want or allow this fund to play any role in his case whatsoever, as it’s tainted by current allegationsof criminal conduct with respect to its operation—allegations involving the same defendant.
Conclusion
No one knows what will happen on Monday, April 22. But what we do know is this:
{Note: Proof will also note that all the problems with the Knight Bond only underscore that American major media should surely fully investigate the March 11 Chubb Bond as well.}
- There are dozens of reasons for the Knight Bond to be rejected;
- if the bond is rejected, there’s no evidence Trump will be able to get another one (based on his own representations of not being able to find any lender besides his self-acknowledged “lender of last resort”, Don Hankey);
- if Trump can’t get another bond, New York Attorney General Letitia James will begin dismantling Trump’s real estate empire in New York by the end of April;
- as Proof has shown (see reports above in the Bibliography), Trump’s real estate empire is much smaller than people realize—he owns very few buildings in New York, and those buildings are worth nothing like what he has claimed for years they are—which means that it could ultimately require almost the entirety of the Trump empire inside the United States (Mar-a-Lago excluded) to cover the nearly half a billion dollars Trump owes in this one civil case in New York; and
- should Trump contest any of the facts above, the odds that new facts will emerge about how this bond came about—facts that could point to additional crimes or civil misconduct by Trump or his allies—are high, meaning Trump cannot now defend himself in this Bond War without incurring significant risk of additional legal exposure.
While Trump’s trial on 34 felonies in Manhattan appears on its surface to be a much greater threat to Trump than his civil case in New York does, as the former implicates his very liberty, the political consequences of Trump’s civil case may be much greater.
While Trumpists generally see his criminal charges in New York City as occupying a space apart from their image of the former president—after all, the so-called (wildly misnamed) “hush-money” case is “merely” about Trump lying repeatedly to American voters in 2016 to try to gain election to the White House, a position he knew he would never attain if he were honest with voters about his illicit sexual activities during his current wife’s pregnancy with Barron—it’s much harder for anyone to question, even fancifully, the symbolism of Trump’s civil fraud case in New York. Trump manifestly lied about the value of his empire to both banks and the federal government for years, and in a truly merciful judgment it’s not at all clear Trump deserved, Judge Engoron opted merely to fine Trump an amount he had already said he could easily pay rather than ban Trump’s entire company from doing business in New York forever.
Should Judge Engoron have known Trump was lying to him about the amount of cash he had ready to pay a civil judgment? Yes, of course. But that’s neither here nor there: the simple fact is that this case has now revealed that Trump is all but bankrupt, can’t find a lender of any legitimacy, and is about to have his entire financial superstructure decimated in full view of the public—which decimation will also, in the bargain, reveal it was never worth anywhere close to what people (including his fans) thought.
Now add to all of the above that Trump is about to lose the funding for his legal fees.
That’s right: Trump faces jail; old and new gag orders; his first personal bankruptcy; another business bankruptcy; the demolition of his real estate empire; the revelation of how little he and his empire were ever worth; and the inability to pay his legal fees, which are already staggering—and will grow by many tens of millions this year alone.
And Trump may soon face an inability to properly fund his presidential campaign, too.
So it may be that the court hearing in New York City on Monday, April 22, 2024 that’s most important to Donald Trump’s future isn’t the first day of his trial on 34 felonies but the one whose conclusion could mark the beginning of the end for Trump’s brand.
And as America learned long ago, Donald Trump is nothing if not his brand. In fact, it increasingly seems like “Trump” was never anything more than a brand to begin with.
Imagine Trump thinking he could get away with even more fraud to pay for his other fraud right in front of Leticia James who is like a dog with a bone and brave beyond belief.
What a fool he is.
Next 24 hours should be interesting.
Trump himself actually is the biggest fraud of all it seems.
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