NY attorney general takes first step to prepare to seize Trump assets

The New York attorney general’s office has filed judgments in Westchester County, the first indication that the state is preparing to try to seize Donald Trump’s golf course and private estate north of Manhattan, known as Seven Springs. #CNN #News

We’re also following some other developments this time out of New York, where the attorney general’s office is now making moves suggesting that the state at this point may start to try to see some of the former president’s assets if he fails to pay that nearly half a billion dollar

Bond in his civil fraud case. So something that, as we know right now, he cannot do. His lawyers have argued he’ll be unable to satisfy that. And there’s that deadline looming only about four days away. CNN’s Kara Scannell is on this. Kara, What are you learning that Letitia James is weighing here?

What moves is she making toward this? So earlier this month, just about a week after the judge finalized the $454 million judgment that Trump personally faces, the New York attorney general’s office filed this judgment in Westchester County. What that means is that it sets the stage and makes it possible for her

To potentially move forward to try to seize assets in Westchester. That’s where he has a golf course. Also, the family compound known as Seven Springs in a state of crossing over three different jurisdictions. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s going to move to seize those specific assets if it comes to that.

The judgment is also in New York, where Trump has a lot of properties, Trump Tower, his penthouse apartment there, the hotel at the corner of Central Park, as well as the office building, 40 Wall Street. So it’s essentially making it possible to set the groundwork that if she does want to move forward

To put lanes on these properties or move to initiate foreclosure proceedings, that is in place, they are on notice. Now, I also checked some of the county clerk’s offices in some of the other places where Trump has properties in Florida. In Chicago, I didn’t see any judgments there as of now.

So right now, it looks like the set the stage is getting set to move in New York. But of course, there is still time, although that clock is ticking as Trump is waiting to see if the appeals court is going to allow him to post a smaller amount or allow him

To not post any money until the appeals over the New York attorney general’s office has opposed that. And Trump still does not have the money to satisfy that half a billion dollar judgment for us Erica. And in terms of that. Right. Are there any other options at this point?

We know we’ve been talking about, of course, the 30 companies that refuse to loan the R underwrite that money. And the deadline, as Boris point out, is looming as you’re talking about Are there any other options left so Trump could potentially take out a mortgage on some of his properties? That’s pretty complicated.

A lot of the large financial institutions stopped doing business with Trump years ago. You know, also some properties, you know, there are questions about what their value is. That was the issue in this whole case that the judge found that Trump inflated the value. So companies generally would want to

Do their own homework before deciding whether to issue a mortgage on a property. And also, mortgage interest rates are high right now. That makes the cost of doing that pretty expensive. And we’ve seen Trump publicly state that you know, this is an expensive process for him. That is one option.

There could be a donor that comes in last minute and offers to give Trump cash for this and remains to be seen if anyone credible is going to do that. And then, you know, he could potentially have a fire sale of one of his properties on his own. I mean, the clock

There, again, is ticking. It seems that is unlikely. Surely the Trumps are working behind the scenes as they’re facing this deadline. But if not, we’ll see what happens on Monday. Erica Faust, Garrison thank you so much. Let’s bring Jennifer Rogers back in. So Jennifer, let’s say March 25th comes this bond isn’t paid.

How quickly will we find out if Donald Trump is going to have properties seized Well it’ll be still a bit of time because there’s a whole legal process around seizing assets. First step apparently James and her team has already started, which is to file the judgments in the relevant jurisdictions.

But that’s only the first step. And it’s even more complicated when it comes to real property, because you know, it’s not like Monday. You’re just going to see a team of sheriffs go up and put a padlock on a building or anything like that. There’s paperwork steps.

Trump may have the ability to challenge some of those steps before things are actually seized and of course, seizure and then sale and then taking the assets. So it will be a while before anything really happens. But I think that the will be we will hear something from the court

Between now and then because, you know, there’s a lot of scrambling going on. So I expect we’ll hear something from the court one way or the other, whether they send it back to judge and go on for some sort of fact finding about what’s been done and possible solutions

Or whether the court itself will speak. We’ll find out. We also, you know, as Kara pointed out, she she went and looked to Miami. She look to Palm Beach County. Cook County in Illinois. No, judgments entered there. But when people think of the property that Donald Trump owns, the most

Well known would be, of course, Mar a Lago and Trump Tower in New York. Do you see either one of those realistically being seized I mean, it’s really hard to say. It just depends on how many assets there are that are in New York, New York assets or easier for the attorney general

To get to because they’re here. They can file more easily. So I think they would probably start there. And remember, it’s not just real estate. Even though Trump doesn’t have enough in cash, or cash like assets, like securities to cover the entire bill, he has some. So you would want to probably start

With those liquid assets anyway. And then for the real estate that does exist, some of them, some of that value is already encumbered in other places as he’s taking loans out based on the collateral of those real estate properties. So it’s not as if you have the whole value of a Mar

A Lago, for example, even if you knew what that value was, which of course is part of the whole reason that we’re here in the first place is that those values were exaggerated. So, you know, it depends, but but we’ll see what they do. It is a complicated picture.

I have one more procedural question for you, Jennifer. There was this debate between the Trump team and the AG, the Trump team saying we looked at 30 different companies. Nobody could provide us this massive figure. $464 million. Letitia James argued back, essentially saying, well, maybe they can’t give you all of that,

But you can go to these companies and separately, they can give you small chunks that then add up to that number. Is that a realistic argument from the AG? Could Trump pursue that Sure. And, you know, in fact, the one thing that Team Trump did say is why don’t you make it

Just a $100 million loan, $1,000,000 bond, and then that we can do. So then the question becomes, well, then why don’t you just do two of those or three of those or four of those or however many you can get there? There’s one of the problems here, and I think the AG

Put your finger on it in her response is there is not much transparency around what the Trump team actually did and what negotiations are actually were with these 30 companies. So it very well may be that there is the opportunity to piece together smaller bonds to make up the whole amount.

The issue is just making sure that the people can be whole at the end of this. If at the end of the long appeal, the large judgment is still upheld, then, you know, they need to be paid. So that’s what the bond is for. But there’s no reason they can’t be a bit

Creative about how to make sure that money is there. And one scenario, as you mentioned, we wind up seeing a Fact-Finding Mission to figure out just how extensive the Trump team’s research was and trying to get this fine. Jennifer Rogers, appreciate the time. Thanks so much. Trump is fundraising,

Sending a text to supporters yesterday reading Keep Your Filthy Hands Off Trump Tower. So what he is doing and I just want to be clear, he’s not asking his supporters to pay his bond. He’s asking his supporters to give money to his campaign, which also contributes to legal fees. Exactly. And you can

Double dip in a sense, because, I mean, there is a limit for fear, for a contributing to a political campaign. There’s not the same limit for a legal defense fund. And if I may, he’s also I mean, this is what he does. And. Right. Everybody in politics does

Is now he’s trying to rile up his potential donors to get angry, to send money. And one thing that is clear that we’ve seen really for now more than a year is whenever he is in legal trouble, it is helped him politically. So imagine the scenario I heard one of our legal experts

Saying on our air this morning that, you know, the visual of Trump Tower being padlocked or something and, you know, they’re seizing property. Imagine how that would help the former president politically. Imagine how those images would sort of build on to this. So even though legally and financially, it’s not good for him,

We do not necessarily know that politically. This is not good for him in the moment. Is just one more a part of what a lot of voters see as a pile on effect for him. So you know, this drumbeat to the Monday deadline also keeps Trump consuming all the oxygen in this race.

Yeah, that’s right. And that is such an important note of caution, because every single time I can’t think of one example right now. I’m sure there is where sort of the conventional thinking in a conventional campaign about a conventional politician was. This is going to hurt another thing. Yeah, right. Yeah. And it’s

I mean, going even back to when he was trashing John McCain didn’t hurt him.