Adjudged fraudster's bond sufficiency in question - whose fault is that? [UPDATED]

 DailyBeast, subheadline, "New records show the company that rescued Donald Trump from property seizures in his bank fraud case are potentially over-leveraged—and the AG wants answers." Details:

The aggressive move by AG Letitia James came after Knight Specialty Insurance Company—a relatively unknown entity with tangential political connections to the former president—was forced to reveal its finances.

Lawyers for the law enforcement office made a court filing that “hereby takes exception to the sufficiency of the surety,” noting that KSIC is trying to operate “without a certificate of qualification.” Under New York law, state regulators have certain standards to ensure that an insurer is “solvent, responsible and otherwise qualified to make policies or contracts of the kind required.”

The AG has given Trump and his rescuers 10 days to, as government lawyers put it, “justify the surety.”

What’s more, the additional scrutiny has called into question whether this insurance company even has enough money to meet the capital requirements for posting the bond.

[...] In a midday court filing, the Knight Speciality Insurance Company revealed that it currently only has $138 million in “surplus.” That means the bond it has decided to post for Trump smashes through the 10 percent barrier, topping a whopping 127 percent of the company’s dedicated reserves.

But just before the new paperwork was filed, Knight Specialty Insurance president Amit Shah told CBS that the company has a novel theory as to why the state capital requirements don’t apply to their firm: because Knight Insurance isn’t even registered to operate as a surety in New York.

[...] It’s unclear what happens now, [...]

It appears the Judge will hear matters. A commenter at another site -

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/04/04/bullshit-and-also-aileen-cannon-post/#comment-1047563 

- explains:

Trump’s $175 million bond troubles came up a couple of days ago. But it took a day to figure out which company’s f/s the court wanted, as part of the documentation Trump failed to provide. It turned out to be the insurer’s, not Trump’s. But the problems with Trump’s bond seem incurable.

The NYAG objected, as was her right, to the $175 million appeals bond Trump provided for several reasons. One was that the issuer was not subject to jurisdiction or registered to do business in NY. Insurers and bond issuers are also regulated businesses, so that can’t be fixed simply by filing a little paperwork overnight.

A bigger problem is that the issuer failed to provide its most recent 2023 annual financial statement. That’s necessary because under NY rules, an issuer needs to maintain minimum free cash (and possibly net worth) requirements. An issuer cannot issue, for example, a single bond worth more than 10% of its free cash.

Knight Specialty Insurance’s net worth is about $537 million, its free cash about $137 million. The maximum value of a single bond it could issue to a NY court would be less than $14 million. This bond is for $175 million, which makes it non-compliant. Trump couldn’t fix that even if he prepaid Knight the full amount of the bond.

Given that Trump has only a few days to fix an unfixable problem with this issuer, the easiest way for him to fix this problem – given that the Trumps have bragged for days that he secured the bond with “cash and marketable securities” – is to prepay that amount to the court.

Whose problem is this? Trump’s. [...]  Trump’s job was to ensure the bond would comply with NY state rules, an entirely predictable problem any competent bond lawyer could have spelled out to him. Trump either didn’t ask what rules he had to comply with, or was trying to pull a fast one. Justice Engoron has scheduled a hearing to discuss all this in person.

Without any independent knowledge of facts or law at issue, the statements stand on their own, Crabgrass being merely a bystander finding the situation interesting and newsworthy. Readers are urged to further research things, perhaps starting at -

WEB SEARCH =  trump new york $175M bond sufficiency questions

E.g., NYTimes -

In a statement on Thursday, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Christopher M. Kise, slammed Ms. James, calling her case a “baseless and vindictive political crusade” and her objections to the bond an effort “to stir up some equally baseless public quarrel in a desperate effort to regain relevance.”

Mr. Hankey and Amit Shah, the chief executive of Knight Insurance Group, the parent company of Knight Specialty Insurance Company, did not immediately return requests for comment on Thursday. Mr. Shah told CBS News that Knight had the authority to issue the bond through Excess Line Association of New York, a nonprofit created by New York State that serves as a facilitator between brokers and regulators.

In the earlier interview, Mr. Hankey said he had made contact with representatives of Mr. Trump after a New York judge in February imposed a $454 million judgment in the former president’s civil fraud case and offered to help him post bond. Mr. Hankey said his motivation was business, not politics.

Knight Insurance Group is one of eight companies under the Hankey Group, all based in Southern California. Mr. Hankey earned a reputation as a provider of risky and lucrative loans, specifically collateral-based debt that can be arranged more quickly than conventional loans and requires borrowers to pledge valuable assets.

His companies are known for relentlessly calling people who miss payments by a day, and repossessing vehicles from delinquent borrowers, according to news accounts and regulators.

Mr. Hankey said representatives of Mr. Trump called him after the appeals court lowered the bond to $175 million and asked if his company could arrange the bond.

NYT noted, "[...] the judge in the case, Arthur F. Engoron, has tentatively scheduled a hearing for April 22 to discuss the bond." 

____________UPDATE___________

10:21 AM Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Newsweek publishes that the NY State Fraud Trial Judge rejected bond papers to be amended, and that a Trump defendants' current financial statement will need to be filed with amended bond papers (the supervisory person appointed to oversee defense business operations likely will have a role in assuring bona fides of any financial filing, given how the trial hinged on fraudulent financial statement practices, as did the guilty verdict).

Deja vu all over again.

 The Intercept -

A Big-Money Operation Purged Critics of Israel From the Democratic Party

How the Israel lobby moved to quash rising dissent in Congress against Israel’s apartheid regime.

Ryan Grim

November 27 2023, 2:54 p.m. 

 

In May 2021, the Israeli government began pushing ahead with evictions of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It was one more creeping step forward in an occupation and annexation process that had been under way for decades, but what was new this time was the reaction of Hamas, the government in Gaza. If Israel didn’t back off its plan to evict the families and the Palestinian Authority wouldn’t stand up for the homeowners in Sheikh Jarrah, Hamas announced, they would do it themselves.

The Israeli government did not back off, as was to be expected, and Hamas responded by launching rocket attacks into Israel, attacks that were intercepted by the U.S.-built Iron Dome air-defense system or that otherwise crashed to the earth. Israel launched an assault on Gaza, and what became known as the Gaza War of 2021 broke out.

In Gaza wars past, the Washington ritual had always been repeated. Israel had “a right to defend itself,” each statement began, even if the support for that right was occasionally caveated with a hope that Israel might decide to respect human rights and, perhaps, if it saw fit, limit civilian casualties.

This war was different. In the United States, the tenor of the coverage was far less sympathetic than it had been, with images of Israeli police attacking protesters in East Jerusalem and reports of widespread casualties from the Israeli strikes. Mark Pocan, the Madison, Wisconsin, congressman who’d previously co-chaired the Congressional Progressive Caucus, reserved an hour of time on the House floor on May 13, and Democrats paraded through to denounce the assault.

It was like nothing the U.S. Congress had ever seen. Ilhan Omar, standing in the well of the House, bluntly but not inaccurately called Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “ethno-nationalist.” Rashida Tlaib added, “I am a reminder to colleagues that Palestinians do indeed exist.”

Omar recalled her own experience as an 8-year-old huddled under a bed in Somalia, hoping the incoming bombs wouldn’t hit her home next. “It is trauma I will live with for the rest of my life, so I understand on a deeply human level the pain and the anguish families are feeling in Palestine and Israel at the moment,” she said.

[...] Marie Newman, who had been beaten by the combined force of No Labels and AIPAC donors in 2018, had come back and won in 2020, and she joined her colleagues on the floor. In January 2021, she spoke out publicly against Israel’s unequal distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine, demanding that the country vaccinate people in the Palestinian territories it was occupying and allow the vaccine to get to Gaza through the blockade. She organized a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanding that he act. “They ended up negotiating that the vaccine would go through. And so, as a freshman, that was kind of a big coup,” she said. “Never before on any matter that engaged on Palestine, on any letter, resolution, legislation, did you get 23 or 25 members of Congress to sign up something, it just didn’t happen. So, we felt like, Oh, gosh, this is so good. Then that’s when the DMFI [Democratic Majority for Israel] first was like, ‘Oh, shit, she’s a pain. She’s a problem.’ 

[...]

Biden seems to be trying a straddle. He knows Israel is doing wrong. He wants to be reelected. He knows he's better on Israel than Trump. Better than Trump in every way and by any measure. Cut him some slack. Reelected him, or get more of the crap suffered between Obama-Biden and Biden-Harris. 

Wishing it were better is a fools errand, but going lesser evil a necessity. The idle rich can collect McLaurens and buy up land willy-nilly in Duluth, and do a Marie Antoinette in response to any questions. Carlin explains.

NoLabels found no suitable chump. Moot anyway. The threat is what mattered.

Expanding the headline: NO LABELS declines to run a candidate to piss upon the 2024 presidential election. Not that anyone stepped up to commit political career suicide by fronting for the worthless fuckers. In other news Biden continues arming Israel.

AP report carried Apr 4 by USAToday - 

“No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House,” Nancy Jacobson, the group's CEO, said in a statement sent out to allies. “No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”

[...] No Labels' decision, which comes just days after the death of founding chairman Joe Lieberman, caps months of discussions during which the group raised tens of millions of dollars from a donor list it has kept secret. It was cheered by relieved Democrats who have long feared that a No Labels' ticket would fracture Biden's coalition and help Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Other news, Guardian, Apr 1 -

By Friday, the Washington Post was reporting on the latest consignment of billions of dollars worth of US bombs and planes for Israel.

The only hesitation, according to a source familiar with the procedure, was a delay of a few days in processing approval of 1,800 MK-84 2,000lb (907kg) bombs, which can flatten an apartment block and leave an 11-metre deep crater.

It is a devastating weapon that has reportedly been used frequently by the Israeli air force, playing a significant role in the estimated 33,000 death toll in Gaza since October.

The news that the nearly $4bn a year arms pipeline from the US to Israel remained in full uninterrupted flow drew a furious reaction from critics, who pointed to the irony of the Biden administration urging a ceasefire and the delivery of food aid into Gaza while supplying the weapons that fuel both the war and the humanitarian crisis.

“It’s like putting a Band-Aid over someone’s tiny finger cut while you’re continuing to stab them in the chest,” Rae Abileah, a Jewish American peace activist, said.

As a catastrophic famine begins to take hold in Gaza, administration officials have faced questions almost daily why continued US military aid is not being made conditional on a change of Israeli behaviour to limit the civilian death toll and significantly expand aid delivery.

The stock response has been that the US administration, while urging Israel to do more to protect the civilians of Gaza, should do nothing to limit Israel’s ability to defend itself, a touchstone of US foreign policy for more than half a century.

Democrats of all hues, whether they support the current policy or not, say that a change of course by the Biden administration on arms supplies is highly unlikely, for both policy and political reasons.

Still -- Biden is the lesser evil. Trump is that bad. (Worse on Israel via Jared). 

End of story.

 

Trump media business went public by merger with a SPAC. Questions swirl. [UPDATED guilty pleas]

 Triggered by this 3 April 2024 Guardian item, things were found on the web.

Exclusive: Trump Media saved in 2022 by Russian-American under criminal investigation

Trump’s social media company went public relying partly on loans from trust managed by person of interest to prosecutors

Trump Media almost did not make it to the merger after regulators opened a securities investigation into the merger in 2021 and caused the company to burn through cash at an extraordinary rate as it waited to get the green light for its stock market debut.

The situation led Trump Media to take emergency loans, including from an entity called ES Family Trust, which opened an account with Paxum Bank, a small bank registered on the Caribbean island of Dominica that is best known for providing financial services to the porn industry.

Through leaked documents, the Guardian has learned that ES Family Trust operated like a shell company for a Russian-American businessman named Anton Postolnikov, who co-owns Paxum Bank and has been a subject of a years-long joint federal criminal investigation by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) into the Trump Media merger.

[...]

That item links to a SDNY federal superseding indictment of three individuals. Within that linked indictment paragraph 1 identifies three defendants, and at para.5 the term "SPAC" is defined for those new to the term.

EmptyWheel had posted a related item, 1Apr., mentioning the sup. indictment; and opening the post (then excerpting):

Days after the merger between Truth Social and Digital World Acquisition Corporation went through, the new company, Trump Media and Technology Group, released its 8K. It described that it’s not sure Truth Social will make it a year.

The EW post included extended reader commentary, which collectively speaks for itself. Links were provided by the EW commenters. Also posted Apr.1, TPM, Understanding Papa Don’s New Pump and Dump 8-K

Bloomberg, Apr. 1, 

A billionaire Donald Trump supporter whose California company is known for subprime auto loans and who has ties to one of the former president’s banks arranged his $175 million appeal bond in New York state’s civil fraud suit, though he said politics had nothing to do with it.

Don Hankey, whose fortune stems from car dealerships, real estate and financial services, is chairman of Knight Specialty Insurance Co., which posted Trump’s bond on Monday, three days before a court-imposed deadline. It gives Trump a lifeline by putting a $454 million judgment on hold while he appeals.

The bond and Hankey are discussed within the EW thread. Crabgrass readers are urged to consider the EW thread, to find links and to weigh opinions stated there.

There seems an EW reader consensus that investing in the merged publicly traded trump social adventure might entail risk.

Guardian  follow-up -

 Two Florida brothers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to securities fraud over their roles in a $23m insider trading scheme when they traded on confidential information in 2021 about the planned merger between Donald Trump’s social media company and the special purpose vehicle that would take it public.

The men – Michael and Gerald Shvartsman – had originally pleaded not guilty when they were charged with multiple counts of securities fraud last year alongside a third co-defendant and were scheduled to go to trial later this month.

___________UPDATE___________

Marginally related, https://bsky.app/profile/danir.bsky.social/post/3kp5iq7bf5s2q and 

Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners investment firm filed a disclosure with minor updates and $50 million less in assets under management than the prior year

 

Below are highlights from the most recent public disclosure for Kushner’s Affinity Partners along with pdfs of the updated filings, followed by a summary of known investments and upcoming projects.

Highlights of the new filing for Kushner’s Affinity Partners

Kushner’s A Fin Management LLC has just filed an updated Form ADV and firm brochure with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dated March 28, 2024, for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2023.

Below are a few highlights:

• $3,004,963,927 is the amount of regulatory assets under management in section (f) Pooled investment vehicles.

• This amount was approximately $50 million less than the prior year 2022 which had $3,055,804,564.

• Of the $3,004,963,927 of regulatory assets under management in 2023, the approximate amount attributable to clients who are non-United States persons was $2,973,976,414 or 99% of the total.*

• Affinity Partners Parallel Fund I LP has $2,973,976,414 in regulatory assets under management and approximately 6 beneficial owners.

• Affinity Partners Fund I LP has $30,987,513 in regulatory assets under management and approximately 1 beneficial owner.

• John Rader who was listed as Chief Operating Officer in the prior form is no longer included in the list of direct owners and executive officers.

Earlier content, that item:

After leaving the White House Jared Kushner set up an investment advisory firm called Affinity Partners, which is officially registered as A Fin Management. In 2022 the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) invested over $2 billion and in 2023 the United Arab Emirates invested over $200 million and a Qatari entity invested a similar sum.

Kushner’s firm receives millions of dollars in management fees each year for investing these funds on behalf of its clients. Last summer the Wall Street Journal reported that per some officials Saudi Arabia had “agreed to pay Kushner tens of millions in management fees each year—even if he didn’t invest the money.”

Jared Kushner has consistently denied that he has received preferential treatment after serving in the White House or because of his connection to Donald Trump.

Sure Jarad, if you say so.

 

To go with Trump 60 buck bibles, another one I could not make up if I tried: "Louisiana’s Republican governor has called for the scholarships of college athletes who are not present for the national anthem before games to be revoked." Huey P. Long smiles from his grave.

While likely multi-sourced, Crabgrass found the story this morning on Guardian:

His announcement came after the LSU women’s basketball team were absent during the pre-game ceremonies on Monday night ahead of their eagerly anticipated NCAA Tournament contest with Iowa.

Jeff Landry, the former state attorney general backed by Donald Trump whose victory in October’s gubernatorial primary denoted a hard-right shift in Louisiana’s politics, took to social media on Tuesday to criticize the Tigers and their head coach, Kim Mulkey, for not being on the court when the Star-Spangled Banner was played.

“My mother coached women’s high school basketball during the height of desegregation, no one has a greater respect for the sport and for Coach Mulkey,” Landry posted on X. “However, above respect for that game is a deeper respect for those that serve to protect us and unite us under one flag!

“It is time that all college boards, including Regent, put a policy in place that student-athletes be present for the national anthem or risk their athletic scholarship! This is a matter of respect that all collegiate coaches should instill,” he wrote.

Louisiana State, the defending national champions, were beaten 94-87 on Monday by the top-seeded Hawkeyes, who progressed to the Final Four behind a brilliant 41-point performance by star guard Caitlin Clark.

Mulkey, who has won four national titles as a head coach and was inducted to basketball’s Hall of Fame in 2020, said afterward that her players were undergoing their regular pre-game preparations on Monday night when the anthem was played.

“Honestly, I don’t even know when the anthem was played,” Mulkey said after the game.

What a totally stupid dirtbag thing from an elected official, but the Guv is Republican. Expect him to act like one. Noteworthy -

Of the four teams playing in Monday’s NCAA Tournament games, the Tigers were one of three who were not on the floor for the anthem.

If the bastard's reach were greater he'd toast two other teams. Agents of some devil, clearly off kilter and losers, Iowa won. Add in this -

The episode has kicked off a furore on the right-wing corners of social media, who have branded Mulkey as ‘woke’ for her role in the apparently unintentional episode.

A spokesperson for LSU’s athletics department said that Monday’s protocol was no different than what has occurred in recent years with both the men’s and women’s basketball teams.

“Our basketball programs have not been on the court for the anthem for the last several seasons,” the school’s associate athletics director Cody Worsham said in a statement on Tuesday.

Those ingrates do it ALL THE TIME. Guv. Landry go in that locker room with a hickory stick, teach civics to ingrates, be yourself in full glory. (The item is silent on whether Guv Landry is up for reelection this November, where Crabgrass can guess.) Make those NIL coddled athletes do a U-turn to Make America Great Again. Decisiveness. Civics. Instructional will.

That's what we like about the South.

 

Minnesota Supreme Court will hear an advocacy group's challenge to Minnesota felon voting rights statute.

 CBSNews -

The law passed last year restored the voting rights of 55,000 Minnesotans on probation, supervision and work release. Before the change, they had to complete their probation before they could regain their eligibility to vote.

An Anoka County judge overruled a challenge to that law filed by the Minnesota Voters Alliance. The alliance argued that the law violates a clause in the state constitution that says felons cannot vote "unless restored to civil rights." The group argued that the language means all their civil rights, not just some.

Anoka County Judge Thomas Lehmann ruled that the alliance lacked the legal standing to sue and failed to prove that the Legislature overstepped its authority when it voted to expand voting rights for the formerly incarcerated.   

The group's appeal of that decision will now be heard by the state's Supreme Court.

Advocates for the change argued that disenfranchising felons disproportionately affects people of color because of biases in the legal system. 

Twenty-two other states have laws similar to Minnesota's in which felons automatically have their right to vote automatically restored upon release.

[...] The Minnesota Court of Appeals in November rejected a different attempt to void the law along similar grounds, ruling that a lower court judge overstepped his authority when he declared the law unconstitutional. 

Many believe voting rights are inherent aspects of citizenship and should not be suspended or impeded in any situation. Minnesota's Constitution would have to be amended to make that change.

Trump posts bond. Sixty-buck Bibles must have sold well last week. Covers his assets.

 Link.