On Friday, Donald Trump was hit with a penalty of $350 million in the New York civil fraud case and was prohibited from doing business in the state. He and the Trump Organization are banned from applying for loans from any New York-chartered financial institution for three years. Following the news, the ex-president’s niece Mary Trump weighed on the trial’s outcome in a Substack post.
What Happened: “Donald’s ability to commit fraud with impunity has come to an end — at least in New York — and believe me, that matters to him,” Mary Trump said of the ruling.
The ex-president’s niece, one of his vociferous critics, said she sees the verdict impacting her uncle both “financially and psychologically.” “Between today's ruling and E. Jean Carroll’s righteous victory, it’s hard for me to overstate just how ruinous this is likely to be — both financially and psychologically — for Donald,” she said.
“These are the kinds of judgments that will bring Donald to his knees because money and the illusion of his success are all that matter to him.”
Tracing the root of Donald Trump’s financial challenges, Mary Trump said her uncle and her grandfather “perpetuated the myth that he was a self-made man.” This is despite the former president receiving over $400 million from his father in the form of “gifts, unpaid loans, unearned dividends, and other perks,” she said.
“This lie, along with the completely unfounded claim that Donald was somehow an entrepreneurial phenom, was nevertheless kept alive by the banks who loaned him money and the corporate media,” she said, adding “[now] it's all finally unraveling, thread by thread.”
Why It’s Important: The New York civil fraud case “verdict is absolutely ruinous for Donald,” Mary Trump said.
Citing financial expert Dan Alexander, Mary Trump, a psychologist and podcaster, said the roughly $89 million in damages Donald Trump owes Carroll and the $350 million fine he received in the NY civil fraud case exceed the value of his available liquid assets.
The estimated $400 million in liquid cash the former president has on hand is what matters now, Mary Trump said. “Fake evaluations will not help him here. If that $400 million amount is accurate, Donald is in a bit of a bind,” she said.
The options before Donald Trump is to either restructure his debt or sell at some of his properties in order to make up the shortfall, she said. The former option looks like an improbability because Donald Trump was just convicted of fraud, she said.
Secondly, Mary Trump said she sees the verdict damaging to her uncle’s perceived image as a “successful and enormously wealthy real estate tycoon.”
“The fact that the New York trial has exposed the fact that not only Donald's business practices but also his bluster about his business acumen are merely long-running cons makes this one of the worst days in Donald's entire life,” she said.
The verdict came after the long-pending merger of Digital World Acquisition Corp. DWAC and Donald Trump’s media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, was cleared by the SEC this week, potentially allowing the former to go public and add about $4 billion to his fortune.
The former president is currently leading the Republican presidential primary race by a mile and has been leading President Joe Biden in hypothetical two-way matchups.
Aside from the NY civil case, Donald Trump is also contending with four criminal cases related to election subversion and the mishandling of classified documents, among other challenges.
Earlier this week, a hearing related to the hush-money case ended in a setback against him as Justice Juan Mechan reprimanded his lawyers and threatened them with sanctions.
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