Corporate death penalty
After Donald Trump’s New York civil fraud trial concluded earlier this month, Judge Arthur Engoron announced that he was aiming for announcing the final verdict no later than January 31st. That is of course tomorrow. There’s still no word on whether the judge is on track to hit his own deadline, or when or how he’ll announce the verdict. But as far as anyone knows, it’ll either arrive tomorrow or something close to it.
We know that Judge Engoron has already summarily ruled that Trump engaged in widespread fraud. This means that the verdict will include penalties of some kind. New York Attorney General Letitia James originally sought $250 million and then later upped it to $370 million. The judge will probably take James’ numbers into strong consideration, but the judge will have to make the final determination.
Of course there’s also been a lot of buzz about whether or not the Trump Organization will get the “corporate death penalty,” which is when the courts decide that a company is no longer allowed to exist, and forcibly shut it down. But here’s the thing. I don’t think it necessarily matters.
If the judge hits Donald Trump and the Trump Organization with something like a $370 million fine, there’s no possible way to pay that (especially with the $83 million Trump just lost last week). He doesn’t have that kind of cash around. Nor does he have any assets he can readily sell off for a profit. If you’re upside down on something, selling it doesn’t net you anything. Nor can Trump magically raise $370 million overnight from his gullible supporters. It’s just too big of a dollar amount to be realistic.
In other words, if the judge hits Donald Trump with a $370 million fine, that would be the end of the Trump Organization. It would be the end of Trump’s entire financial house of cards. His assets would end up in receivership and be auctioned off in an attempt at covering the fine, and since they would never add up to the full total, all of his assets could end up being sold off. Maybe even Mar-a-Lago.
How would this be different than the “corporate death penalty” being invoked against the Trump Organization? The particulars would play out differently, but it would be the same concept, and in general terms the same result.
So if Judge Engoron does hit Donald Trump with a multi-hundred million dollar fine this week but doesn’t invoke the “corporate death penalty” against the Trump Organization, we’re going to hear a lot of lamenting and defeatist ranting about the latter. But that’ll just be yet another instance of the professional lamenters on TV and Twitter spinning yet another victory against Trump into a “he’s getting away with all” scenario for effect. The bottom line is that if Trump is hit with a fine larger than he can pay, then he’s finished – corporate death penalty or otherwise.
