Former President Donald Trump could face many of his properties being sold by the government at “fire sale prices” if he refuses to pay the fine issued to him following his civil fraud trial in New York, a former White House counsel said.
“Can he stiff them? No,” John Dean, who served under Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, told CNN on Saturday. “What’s going to happen is the attorney general will come in, they’ll seize the properties and they will liquidate them at fire sale prices—and that will take more buildings than he could probably negotiate.”
Newsweek approached lawyers acting on behalf of Trump via email for comment on Monday.
On Friday, Trump was ordered to pay nearly $355 million in fines by Judge Arthur Engoron after being found to have overvalued several of Trump’s properties and exaggerated his net worth to secure loans and business deals.
Scott Olson/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The ruling also fined several Trump associates, including sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and banned the former president from serving as an officer or director of a New York company for three years.
Engoron wrote that the defendants’ “fact and expert witnesses simply denied reality,” that “their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological,” and that though they were found to have committed “a venial sin, not a mortal sin,” they “are incapable of admitting the error of their ways.”
Responding to the ruling, Trump has continued to disparage Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case, and claim that the trial was politically motivated.
Trump denied any wrongdoing throughout the trial and his lawyers have vowed to appeal the ruling. They have 30 days to find the money or secure a bond.
The valuation of several of Trump’s high-profile properties were called into question in a prior ruling by Engoron, including his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, his triplex apartment in Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street in New York City.
To compound the problem, Trump was ordered to pay pre-judgement interest on three components of the fine, dating to March 2019, May 2022 and June 2023.
“The judgment is actually a little higher than people think,” Dean said, adding that the pre-judgement interest “adds up to about another $100 million that’s on this judgment that’s already there and grows every day at a rate of nine percent.
“This isn’t something that he can just sit on. Even if he appeals, the rate apparently goes on and on. So this is growing debt.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.