Legal trouble
Donald Trump pays $175 million for appeal process – and gets further gag order
Former President Donald Trump is involved in numerous lawsuits
© Yuki Iwamura/AP/DPA
Donald Trump has several lawsuits on his hands. He has now deposited an enormous guarantee in one. In another, he can’t afford any more verbal gaffes.
In February, Trump, who wants to be re-elected US President in November, was sentenced to a fine of more than $350 million in the fraud trial. With interest, the total amount due is now more than $450 million. A 30-day deadline for depositing the money expired a week ago on Monday. An appeals court gave Trump another ten days to pay the fine and reduced the bail amount to $175 million. It had long been unclear whether Trump would be able to raise the money in time.
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In the civil lawsuit, Trump, his sons and employees were accused of manipulating the value of the Trump Organization for years in order to get cheaper loans and insurance contracts.
Muzzle Donald Trump in hush money trial
In another case, however, the ex-president was given strict rules: Trump can no longer afford any verbal gaffes towards family members of a New York judge in the upcoming hush money trial. A court decided this on Monday (local time) after the former US president denounced the judge’s daughter as a “rabid Trump hater” in a social media post. “All citizens called upon to participate in this process, whether as jurors, witnesses or in any other capacity, must now worry not only for their own personal safety, but also for the safety and potential for personal attacks on theirs “This reality cannot be overstated,” Judge Juan Merchan said of the extended news blackout.
New York prosecutors had argued that Trump tried to intimidate potential witnesses and asked Judge Juan Merchan to clarify that the previous news blackout, which prohibits Trump from publicly commenting on witnesses and court employees, should also apply to their family members. They were responding to his March 28 social media post in which he disparaged Merchan’s daughter and called for the judge to be removed from the case. Susan Necheles, a lawyer for Trump in the hush money scandal, declined to comment on Merchan’s extended news blackout. Trump’s lawyers had unsuccessfully tried to have the judge removed from the case. The ex-president could face a fine or prison sentence if he violates the news blackout.
Donald Trump will stand trial in a New York court in Manhattan starting April 15 for paying porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 before the 2016 election to buy her silence about an alleged sexual relationship. The case is one of four criminal charges Trump faces.