Happy Donald Trump Civil Asset Forfeiture Day to Those Who Celebrate!

Before we get to #DonPorleone, we start with thoughts and prayers to everyone still stuck in the oppressive Palm Sunday traffic, as well as an explanation of why that's one of my all-time favorite jokes from my childhood. (Spoiler Alert- it has virtually nothing to do with religion.)

But it's not all chuckles and childhood capers; we slip into the more sobering topic of Donald Trump's latest courtroom drama and the hefty financial judgment that's got everyone talking—and tweeting. #DonPorleone is more than a viral sensation; it's a commentary on the high-stakes legal tango between Trump and New York Attorney General Leticia James. Explore the nitty-gritty of asset seizures, the complexities of legal strategy, and the potential ripple effects that this landmark case could have. From the valuation of luxury properties to the precedent of holding a former president accountable, this episode unpacks the serious implications behind the humor and the headlines.

Learn more about the Keystone Reckoning Project at www.keystonereckoning.com

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Chapters

• 0:00 Palm Sunday Traffic Story
• 7:44 Palm Sunday Traffic and Trump's Debt
• 12:45 Asset Seizure in Legal Battle

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Brother, can you spare 46,390 million dimes? Good morning and welcome to the Keystone Recording Podcast for Monday, march 25, 2024. I'm your host, jesse White, and I'm feeling festive today. I feel like it's a time to celebrate for a couple of reasons and I want to start with a non-political little story. But it's one of my all-time favorite stories of something that happened to me in my childhood and I didn't have a lot of great moments to immerse my childhood. But this is one of them and it's time sensitive, so I thought it's a good time to tell it. And if you ever follow me on social media, you look at I do an annual post and they're like what the hell is this guy talking about? So yesterday was Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is, for those that don't know, it's the Sunday before Easter and it commemorates Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, as mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels, and it originates from the Palm branches. Wave to the crowd to greet and honor Jesus as he entered the city. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week, which ends in Easter this coming Sunday.

Speaker 1: 1:40

So a little bit more background. I am was raised Catholic, as in. I was baptized, I took communion. I did not have my confirmation. I kind of backed away after that but I did all the early on Catholic things, went to CCD, you know, did all that stuff. My grandmother did take me to church on occasion, so I was a, you know, I kind of spoke the language, but I held no currency in terms of being a Catholic. And as time has gone on and I'll talk about this in future podcasts because it merits a much longer discussion as time went on I moved away from the church as I moved into public life and for a lot of reasons. But the point being, I was a theoretical lower KC Catholic as a child and so was one of my best friends and I'm not even going to use names because we had a falling out over the years and I don't want to go there and it was actually political but one of my best friends since I was like five years old, similar very. They were adopted but it was a very. The parents were very Italian, kind of old school Catholic and the weekend, the one weekend, we were driving up to his extended families to see his extended family up in Indiana, pa.

Speaker 1: 3:08

We lived a little south of Pittsburgh, so it was like maybe an hour drive a little bit more. And it was me, my best friend, his brother, who was a couple years younger than us, and his father, and his father as I am now a father myself, I find myself using his name was Jack. I find myself using Jackisms a lot, and it's both hilarious and terrifying in a lot of ways, because he was just the dad that always got flustered and frustrated when dealing with smart ass kids, and we were the epitome of smart ass kids. But at that point I'd been around so much. You know we're about six we had to be 16, at least, when this happens, we're about 16. And I'd been around the house at that point since I was like five. So I was one of the kids and I was as much of a smart ass as any of them.

Speaker 1: 3:55

So you got these three smart ass kids and we're we're heading up to Indiana, pa, and my friend had just gotten his learners permit. And I know the rules are different now with, like learners permit and all that you have to do so many hours or whatever. And this is when, like, you got your learners permit and as long as you felt you were ready after that, you could go ahead and get your license. So my friend was like super excited to drive, which I get, and he had convinced his dad to let him drive from Pittsburgh up to Indiana, which is like basically a straight line, is pretty straightforward, and we were going on a Friday, like early afternoon, so it wasn't, like you know and this plays into the story it wasn't like a big traffic time, right, it was, like you know, it was Friday at like one o'clock. There was not much going on and I remember the car he had, like the dad had a Cadillac and it was like one of those like big, like late 80s, early 90s Caddy's. It was a boat. I mean there's just no other way to put it. The actually wasn't a boat, it was like an aircraft carrier.

Speaker 1: 5:01

So we're in this car and the brother and I are in the backseat, we're like playing cards or just being stupid kids, and the dad is in the passenger seat. My friend is driving and my friend was a little reckless as, given the fact that he did end up backing a car into a garage like less than a year later, but he was driving fine, he was doing all the things because his dad was sitting, you know, seven inches away watching his every move and the dad was just getting so freaked out about every little thing and in one of the greatest fits of frustration and ill logic I've ever heard in all parenting history, we're driving and the dad is yelling, but yelling but like admonishing, and he says to my friend you've got to be really careful because all the traffic this weekend and like there's like dead silence in the car and the dad's like it's a holiday weekend, the silence continues. My friend doesn't want to ask because like he's you know driving and he knows, and he knows there's something coming that's not gonna be great. So his brother from the back seats, like dad, what holiday? And his dad gets all flustered because he realizes what's about to come out of his mouth makes no sense at all and he goes it's bomb Sunday. Now, this was Friday, it was Friday at like 1 pm. His dad warns him about is giving him a hard time, about traffic for Palm Sunday, which is two days away, and that still assumes that there could be a lot of traffic on Palm Sunday itself. It's a whole other thing.

Speaker 1: 6:34

But I don't know if I've ever laughed as hard in my entire life as I did when I heard that. And we all did right, we were losing it. Now the dad did not find it nearly as funny because he realized, like it me as a dad. Now I'd be like, okay, that was ridiculous. And I'd like, yeah, laugh along. Yeah, this guy did not have that level of like chill and it just made it that much funnier.

Speaker 1: 6:56

So, long story short, we go up there and we did go to Palm Sunday A service on Sunday but the entire thing just became this massive running joke about Palm Sunday. I don't know how he didn't Just leave us in a field to die somewhere. We were so Obnoxious, every little thing, what. We were just so ridiculous into the point where we actually went to church on Palm Sunday and it reached like it's pinnacle and like I'm pretty sure we left early Because we were being so Ridiculous. Any of you an idea of just how like, totally out of it and disrespectful we were? I don't think I was told in advance that we were going to church. I was wearing like a Michael Jordan, like space jam t-shirt to church for Palm Sunday, like this was not my finest hour.

Speaker 1: 7:44

But so now you know, it's one of those great jokes that is just Endured and it's actually gone further out into my you know, my family and my you know close group of friends. And so now Palm Sunday is, you know, I get like seven tech saying like please be careful out there, the traffic Don't go anywhere. To now I have my kids thinking it like I took us to go see Ghostbusters yesterday and we're driving a movie theater and he's like, hey, he's like you sure you want to go today. And I'm like why he's like Palm Sunday, I'm just worried about the traffic, you know. So like it's this never anything. So anyway, every year on social I give them the typical Palm Sunday be careful out there warning.

Speaker 1: 8:19

It is one of the very few jokes that is just going to go to my grave. If there is any justice in the world, I would. If I could pick any Day of the year to die like you know, I'm not saying I wanted to be a spiff of a year, but if I could pick any one day of the year to die where I think it would be like the most fun for the people that were going to be Morning slash celebrating my life would be. If I died on Palm Sunday, not because of anything religious, just because it would be. It would be something that would make the people in my life laugh and that would be a wonderful gift to give them after I'm gone. So I just want to say belated happy Palm Sunday.

Speaker 1: 9:01

I imagine most of you are probably listening to this podcast sitting in your cars Because you're still stuck in Palm Sunday traffic from the day before. And to you I say that's on you for not doing the proper planning. You knew it was gonna be Palm Sunday. I have no sympathy for you. You gotta prepare in this day of Google Maps and Waze and all the things. Back then we didn't see We'd have GPS. We didn't know that the traffic was gonna be so bad theoretically. But now, thanks to modern technology, there's no excuse. So I have no sympathy for on you. So sit in the traffic and listen.

Speaker 1: 9:36

Now, while we're talking about things to celebrate, let's talk about what else today is, and that is civil asset for forfeiture day for Donald Trump the 463.9 million dollars in his New York fraud trial the civil judgment is owed. Today he has been unable to secure a bond I to pay that, which is just delightful on so many levels, because you know, it's almost hard to believe that someone finally realized that lending this guy money was a really, really bad idea. Like, is there anybody that's more famous for not paying their bills than Donald Trump? Like, of course, no one's gonna lend him the money. I mean, it was one thing. When he needs to borrow, like you know a little bit, you know a $2 million, you know relatively speaking, but $463 million, it's like real money. That's real money. It's just about anybody. So it is really hilarious.

Speaker 1: 11:15

And the best thing I've seen on Twitter so far has been hashtag Don Porleone, which is just a wonderful, a wonderful Twitter hashtag If you want to go check out something entertaining. Yeah, don Porleone, obviously a play on the Godfather, and so here's the thing, though. So what's going to happen? Right, let's, let's look and see. Let's talk about this for a second for real. So he owes the money, and New York Attorney General Leticia James now has, like, all sorts of tools in her toolbox to go get the money, and the question everybody's asking is you know what? How aggressive are they going to be?

Speaker 1: 11:51

I am, from what I'm seeing and reading and guessing and wishing and loving and hoping is that they are going to be aggressive in going after it, but if they get for no other reason for a couple of reasons. One is I think you have to send a message right, you didn't go through this whole process to? You know, go after this guy for fraud, and you know so overwhelming, and they get this historic judgment to then not go aggressively collect on it. You know, this is New York, right, when someone owes you money, you go get paid. You know, as a business owner, someone owes me money. One of the things I learned earlier when someone owes you money, you go get it that day. If they have it right, if they have it in hand, you go get it. Well, in this case, he doesn't have it in hand, but they're going to get it and they can do it in a variety of ways. The other thing is like to take a step back for a minute. You know, I, just I one of the things is this was unfolding is.

Speaker 1: 12:45

I just did not understand was why in the world he continued, trump continued to provoke and insult and try to humiliate the judge, the prosecutors, everybody. Like at some point there's like I don't poke the bear component of this, and I get it. He just doesn't know how to shut up right, and it's just. You know, it's constant outrage and he's being unfairly treated. And I do wonder and we'll never really know is does he really believe that? And does he really think that lashing out is going to get him what he's looking for? I don't know, I don't know the answer to that, but so the point is there, the money is to be had now and the toolbox for Leticia James to go get it is expansive, because at this point, you know, one of the things that's made Trump, I think, in a lot of ways, so immune to consequence in so many ways, has been the fact that, like you know, it's the political pressure and he's a former president, and there's, there's, you know, precedent, and you know there are all these norms which I've always believed.

Speaker 1: 13:58

If you're not willing to respect those norms, and those norms should not respect you, and I've maintained that for a lot of different things, because you're also setting a. You know everybody talks about precedent and you know the way things work Well, you're setting a precedent. The other direction, that is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous. So, but that's a discussion for another day. So they could seize a lot of different assets.

Speaker 1: 14:21

The easiest one to go get would be bank accounts, which is, you know it's literally as simple as filing some basic paperwork. I mean, at this point, going after some of these assets. The amount is, you know, astonishingly high. But the process goes to the same. If you're somewhere that you're a couple thousand dollars and you know a small claims court, once the appeals are done or what one in New York, you know, even though the appeal is pending and that's what this is he has to put up a bond pending the appeal. So New York doesn't get the money right from like winning the case, but the money has to be held with interest, which you know we're talking about 450 million. You know the interest is already going up to 464. The interest is going to its statutory interest. It's going to get real, big, real fast. But that money has to sit in an escrow account until the appeal is over and honestly, I have a feeling it's going to get lowered somewhat on appeal. I kind of don't blame him for appealing it, because why not if you've got the money to put up for the bond, but I obviously clearly doesn't.

Speaker 1: 15:25

So they could go get the bank accounts, they could seize those. That's not going to be enough the other. So then they're talking about properties. They're talking about. You know all those different things. One of the things because what you can do is you can seize the properties and then sell them at like a sheriff sale, right, and you know at that point they're open to the highest or, you know, in this case, lowest bidder, you know, or Trump could sell them himself at, most likely a a substantially depleted Value, much lower valuation, because everybody knows there's urgency and it's a quick sell.

Speaker 1: 16:03

So I don't know, you know. I think what's gonna happen is you're gonna see some leans Slapped on to some of the properties. I think they're gonna focus on the New York properties Because you know the New York Attorney General's office is basically the biggest law firm in New York, right, so they can go and Easily go anywhere in New York and effectuate that paperwork and those processes to make it happen. You know the obviously his premier property and his mind is Mar-a-Lago in Florida. That requires, you know, going across different states. I mean, they could do it.

Speaker 1: 16:36

It is not the lowest hanging fruit from a pure law enforcement or pure Assets, asset seizure point of view, right, it's not. It's not easy. Yeah, the only thing more difficult will probably be you know his properties abroad. You know that would be extremely difficult. So, but anything in New York is, you know, kind of right in their wheelhouse. So I wouldn't be surprised if there are not leans at least placed on that and there's a process. They have to give you 60 days and the way I mean it would be a process, but it's a relatively short ramp, right, it is not anything that's gonna be. He can't delay this a whole lot longer.

Speaker 1: 17:13

At this point the ball is out of his court, which is a unique position for him to be in, and you know that's leading to some amazing temper tantrums from Trump amazing. You know you can go. And you know his goofy web, his goofy true social, that it's all getting reposted on the Twitter and he's just like going nothing, which, again, fun to watch. So you know hashtag, oh, no Consequences. So To me, you know, the thing that I wonder and hasn't really been talked about a lot, is if you see an asset and it's Already got loans and encumbrances against the title and since, like my law degree at work in my mind, if so, let's say, for example, me, you have a property worth, let's say, one of his golf courses.

Speaker 1: 17:55

Right, it's worth a hundred million dollars. Let's just take that as an example. If worth a hundred million dollars. But if he's already got it mortgaged and leaned and you know there's other loans against it, it's really not worth a hundred million dollars because those, those leans have to be paid, right? So if let's say it's, he's got $40 million in loan secured against the golf course as collateral and Leticia James goes and puts a lien on it and goes to sell it, let's say it's it's, you know, on paper worth a hundred million, although, given the nature of what the whole lawsuit was about, you know miss value or over inflating the value of assets. You know what's really worth, right. So let's just say, for the sake of argument, that's worth a hundred million dollars. There's a 40 million dollar encumbrance on the title already. She goes to sell it. It sells for the hundred million that look, those loans and leans have to get paid off first and Then the AG would get what's left. So really that hundred million dollar asset meant would only net 60 million dollars. And you have to figure that a lot of these assets are Financed over, you know, put up as collateral out the wazoo, because otherwise he could have gone and borrowed against them in Order to pay down some of the you know to maybe come up with the cash, right like.

Speaker 1: 19:15

It's a lot easier if you need to go borrow money. Right, let's just go out of Trump world for a minute. There's a reason why if you need to borrow money, you can get a more money and a better deal on a home equity loan, assuming you have equity in your house, right? So the more equity you have then, the more you can borrow and the better rate you'll get, because the lender, the bank, whatever Knows that if you don't pay, they are going to get paid because they could take your house. They can foreclose on your house twice easier to get a car loan than it is to get an unsecured loan. If you don't pay, they come and repo the car. You know the lender has some security there and some peace of mind that they wouldn't have if you just went to borrow a bunch of Money with no collateral.

Speaker 1: 19:54

I have to think and I'm sure it's out there, I haven't seen it and maybe some of it isn't out there because if it's tied up in, you know all sorts of crazy international drama and intrigue, what exactly that would look like. So there's that part of it, right. So just because you see all of these different assets that are worth X, it's probably X minus whatever's already owed on them, which means it's going to take a lot more to secure the bond than it might you might think it might on paper. That's one point. The second point that I wonder about is how these assets are titled and what restrictions that puts on them.

Speaker 1: 20:30

Now, given that the, the judgment is against like Trump, the, his sons and the business, then you I would imagine there's a lot of ability there to go get them. But like in reality, out of Trump world for a minute, if there are assets that are joint titled, for example. So let's say someone has a judgment against you in Pennsylvania and I think it's the same in New York, but I could be wrong. But if someone has a judgment against you in Pennsylvania for $1,000 and you've got a bank account with more than $1,000 in it, I'm like great, I'm gonna go seize that, put a lien against that bank account. But if that is a jointly held bank account with you and your spouse and the judgment is only against you, I can't touch it. There are things you can do in how you title assets for asset protection, and especially when you get into the business world, you can form corporations, shell corporations, holding companies. There's a million things you can do, and I would have to think that a significant effort was made within the Trump organization to hide, protect and do whatever else with assets for this exact kind of theory. Right, if he's gonna pay his lawyers to actually do anything, this is probably something he would have paid them for. So there's that part of it.

Speaker 1: 21:45

The other part and this is where it gets really interesting and I think now we're gonna steer back into politics for a minute is this bizarre, incestuous relationship that Trump has with his political fundraising, tax, super PACs, all of that and his non-political expenses and this is a big topic for another day. But generally speaking and there's actually one of the lawsuits has to do it's the Hush Money lawsuit. The Stormy Daniels Hush Money lawsuit is that he used political funds for a non-political purpose. You know he paid the Hush Money to the porn star using campaign funds or political funds, which is prohibited by law, which, by the way, I've never understood.

Speaker 1: 22:29

That If he was gonna pay her Hush Money, why in the world would you do it in a way that was publicly disclosed? It was like the dumbest thing ever. It was like, literally, you're paying a hooker with a check, right, like the Jerry Springer thing. If he had that much money and he was gonna pay her off, why did it not come from somewhere that was not public, right? If he just paid her out of his own pocket, no one would know, or no, you know, it wouldn't have been disclosed. I mean, she could have disclosed it. But if there was an NDA it doesn't matter. But the point is I've always looked back at that as a truly head scratching moment of a. To me it felt like a very cheap, the action of a very cheap person with no awareness of long-term implications for what he was doing. Really dumb, really, really really dumb. Legally, politically, whatever.

Speaker 1: 23:18

But this crazy interplay between how he collects money politically and then uses it you know you could always use money usually political funds, for legal fees, but generally speaking it should be related to your campaign, right? Like you know in Pennsylvania, if you raise money and your political action committee as a candidate and you have a ballot challenge, right, someone challenges your ability to be on a ballot or whatever and you've got to hire a lawyer to go fight that challenge, that would be a permissible use of campaign funds, but if you get a DUI, you can't use your campaign funds to hire your lawyer. So, like, there are limits and they're fairly common sense limits and I think, when this is all said and done, I'll be very curious to find out like when the era of Trump is over assuming there's still a country left If there is what happened to campaign finance laws. Now, you know, every state has their own, their federal. I mean there's a million different sets, but I wonder if anybody is going to start making it, looking at the way this was done because it's basically money laundering, right and doing it and making some changes to avoid this from happening in the future.

Speaker 1: 24:25

However, at the end of the day, if the don't, if his donors are dumb enough to keep funding it, then kind of shame on them, right? I mean, I don't know what you do there. So, anyhow, lots of moving parts, super interesting and someone you know, my interest being both politics and the law. This is like something I love and I'm definitely going to be following and we'll be coming back and talking about, but there's a lot to it. It is a little bit of a deep dive, but it's not an insanely complicated dive. It's definitely worth taking a look and you know, if for nothing else, just for the Don poorly owned memes they're just fantastic. So anyway, thank you very much for taking the time with me today. It has been a great fun little exercise to just have a little fun today. We have a lot more fun planned for the week.

Speaker 1: 25:15

One of the things I'm going to start doing as we get up near the primary election here in PA is looking at individual primaries in legislative and congressional districts. There's some really interesting ones there and I'm going to look at them from a perspective of some of the behind the scenes politics and why things are happening the way they are, and there's a couple that are really, really interesting. I'm hoping to have some of the candidates on. If you know any candidates or if you have anybody that would like to come on the show, please reach out info at keystonerecordingcom. That's info at keystonerecordingcom. Or if you have an idea or a question, I'd love to hear it. Until then, this has been the Keystone Recording Podcast. I'm your host, jesse White. Have a great day. For God's sakes. If you're stuck in Palm Sunday traffic, please be careful. I'll see you next time.