27 Comments

If someone, like Hankey, doesn’t know that everything the orange fascist prick touches, dies, deserves what he gets or won’t get, which is a damn dime, from the lying SOB. Hankey is a fool.

OFP lies as easily as he breathes, it’s absurd anyone can believe him about anything.

The fraudster obtains a court ordered bond, for a conviction of fraud, under fraudulent means- who woulda thunk. FFS.

I’m always worn out after reading your reports, but appreciate them very much.

Expand full comment

I do believe Trump when he tells police officers to rough up suspects, when he recommends that Border Patrol agents shoot immigrants, when he expresses his hatred for Biden, other Democrats, black women, Muslims, Mexicans, people in "shithole countries", etc., when he says Russia can do "whatever the hell they want" with NATO countries he doesn't like, and when he says he will [try to] be a dictator on his first day in office, if re-elected. Of course, I don't believe him when he says he will stop trying to be a dictator on day 2 or anything else he says other than when he expresses his hatreds and violent intentions.

Expand full comment

2 more weeks of uncertainty AND of time for ‘media’ to step up to their duty. So far every time one hopes now trump will be caught, he has escaped. It must stop, this escaping justice!

Expand full comment

Yes, one reason I published this now is that major media still has two weeks to do its job.

Expand full comment

It will be interesting to see if they do step up now. I doubt it. Their owners are too afraid of gaining Trump's wrath.

Expand full comment

Not holding my breath.

Expand full comment

So I think we're all agreed he may not be innocent?

When stories change - here multiple times - you know lies have been told. They've both got away with such unethical business practices for so long, they've become brazen and they believed they were home and dry. Trump and Hankey thought they could put up the bond and that would shut the court up for now, buy Trump some time to work out his next move. Thank goodness Letitia James plays much better law chess than Trump's lawyers ever could.

As you said the moment he posted the bond in the E. Jean Carroll case, it should have been scrutinised. Every dime should, going forward. He's broke, desperate and up for sale. And look at those nations mentioned above! All slated over and over in Trump's vile rhetoric. Any of them possibly his next home if he flees the country. He should have run cinemas because fat lad's an excellent projectionist.

Expand full comment

Your closing line is brilliant, Ellie!

Expand full comment

Thank you! I have to poke fun at him because he would otherwise stress me out too much. I hope I also bring a smile to others, whose blood pressure rises every day he still walks free.

Expand full comment

The Hankey bond is a morass of obfuscation. What struck me about its rejection was that Knight was found to have insufficient liquid assets to cover $175M. If Hankey doesn't have it, he's got to be relying on some other conduit for it, right?

Expand full comment

Follow the shifting Hankey story with this interactive "Follow-The-Money-Chart". I just updated with a link to Seth's latest Substack post. https://embed.kumu.io/4c30e4adb9788312ca78b3adf6e04137

Expand full comment

☆☆☆☆☆

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Apr 8
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Thanks, Elizabeth.

You might also like this interactive chart about CHUBB paying Trump's $91.6 million E.Jean Carroll bail bond. https://embed.kumu.io/5ea48dfd450eb9ce1036c39b1c7f5115

And this one about the Russian money involved with funding Trump Media. There's an interesting element involving a Carribean bank with Russian connections that specializes in payments for porn companies. Each element in the chart connects to underlying sources.

https://embed.kumu.io/5e46313bc6b3315aad3b785606d250db

Expand full comment

Tell me why the GOP Oversight Committee wasted 2 f-ing years while the Kushner’s Billions and Truth Social’s $8M is completely ignored. Will anything be done about the numerous emoluments violations during the orange fascist prick’s term. No ‘?’ needed, we all know the answer.

Expand full comment

The stench of dirty money in this case will hopefully reach the turned up noses of major media.

Expand full comment

Reading this reminded me of a couple questions:

1. Doesn’t Tiny still owe HRC $171k?

2. With Tiny and his magatoids boasting about raising $50M at his billionaire boys club party over the weekend, I’m wondering about the legal circumstances of the donations. Were all the donations at legal limits? Where did the money go? Is the reported amount even true?

Expand full comment

Some commentators have pounced on the fact he's raised exactly double the amount Biden did; Trump is a little OCD on numbers. They've suggested he may have also included promises of future donations or monthly commitments going forward. Until they publish the figures in black and white, like every monetary boast with the "billionaire", they suggest taking all of this with a pinch of salt.

And, if it's true, they're still well behind the Dems in fundraising so far this year. He'd have to do that a couple more times to get ahead, purely to keep up on his legal bills for 2024, without even considering the funding of his political campaign. He's also a deeper shade of orange so his bronzer bills have substantially increased...

Expand full comment

The most perplexing attribute of the Knight Insurance deal is that the whistle blower case is still out there and although suppressed by members of the Tramp administration, I would think still a possibility to be resurrected. So it begs the additional question of why would Hankey leave his ass hanging out as he has? What (source imposing) pressure was Hankey under to issue the bond? And in my mind, why is Hankey still talking? Does he lack legal counsel?

Expand full comment

Trump seems to be daring judges to hold him accountable. Does he gain more support if you jail him now or make him pay more? Would there be riots in the streets? I certainly see that suggestion floated around a lot. He needs to be the victim in order to get more sympathy from stupid people. I think letting him skate through the system now, seemingly making a mockery of it, is better because only MAGAs will see it as Trump winning. But they are the only ones who believe that. It doesn't buy him much new support. But if the judges were to revoke his bail, send him to jail, or come down harder on him (like he deserves!) then he gets to play his victim card. And to some dumb, undecided voters, it will be like watching Dexter, where, without realizing it, you're cheering for a serial killer to keep getting away with it because he's either convinced you he's a "good serial killer" or you somehow feel sorry for him and support him. I can tell you one thing. I can't wait to read Seth's story one day about Trumps complaints over his prison conditions!

What scares me about the maddening pace at which Trump is being investigated is:

1. It feels partially baked in that Trump is perceived as such a flawed candidate that he will be easily defeated in the election. I don't fully get where that confidence comes from, even though some Trump-endorsed candidates have lost. Everyone was so happy that Biden won in 2020 that they forgot that Trump got over 11.2 million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. That's after two impeachments, a botched COVID response costing so many lives, and everything else he said and did. He didn't lose support; as you'd expect, he made gains! Surely, after an insurrection and all the other criminal and civil cases against him, he's not going to keep making gains. Right!? It's like bad things don't affect him the way they should. What keeps happening doesn't align with how our minds tell us our rules-based system should work. We know why he delays, but would being convicted finally make the difference we hope it would? 

2. We're supposed to trust that a fraudster of an ex-president who's got judges helping him and Putin (and an ever-growing list of foreign adversaries) helping him, has Elon helping him, and has been accusing the other side of cheating this whole time is not going to try to pull off his biggest cheat yet with everything on the line when he's otherwise facing the rest of his life in prison? His crimes and antics (and spinoff effects) are only going to get bolder and more frequent, and we need to be prepared.

Our adversaries intend to make America look weak, make Biden look bad, and prop up Trump as the savior who will fix it all. A vast majority of what's going on in the world right now is all in service to those adversarial goals. I think they'd do almost anything to get their desired outcome in our election. I expect things are only going to get worse between now and then. We have to be strong and keep faith in our system; otherwise, they've already won.

Thank you, Seth. Telling the truth right now matters more than ever. I hope it's contagious. It's our best weapon as we fight to keep our democracy.

Expand full comment

Rachel Maddow did a lengthy "lead story" regarding Mr. Hankey's businesses on her weekly report on MSNBC this evening. She included details, including Trump Admin practically end the Financial Consumer Protection Bureau.

Expand full comment

I've read almost every word written about orange dump since 2015 - I know! Beat me with sticks, I love punishment. One thing is clear, he has never had the wealth he claims, I mean the fool bankrupted Atlantic City casinos! And he never, ever pays in full when due, never! That starts his Roy Cohn cycle of legal retribution, he has to be sued, then he sues and the wealthy lawfare is off and running. Over 175 million I can't imagine all the hell he would raise and he no longer is paying his legal bills, the right wing goobers are paying them. Hankey has to know he was making a donation of $175 million to trump, has to know that. How stupid do you have to be to not realize there will be payback, multiple times over the rest of the trump's lives? Is anyone ever pretending to protect our national security any longer?

Can you even imagine the hell Mitch and his fellow republicans would raise if it was found that a Democratic candidate owed for much more than a mortgage on a nice house? Multiple bankruptcies?

Expand full comment

Thank you, Seth. This is quite illuminating. I have just one question. When do you find time to sleep?

Expand full comment

My belief has long been that trump creates chaos by lying, confusing, and obfuscating, in order to distract officials and the public while he does whatever he damn well pleases. Maybe Hankey does that, too. Why would trump put $175 million into a dedicated account to use as collateral, and pay whatever fee to Hankey, rather than just put up the $175 million bond himself? That doesn't make sense to me. Is trump laundering campaign funds? Is he laundering foreign funding by saying it's from Hankey? Has Hankey been out-conned? Is there really a collateral account? I hope the Attorney General's office can figure all this out and proceed accordingly.

Expand full comment

Is the difference with the Chubb bond that E. Jean Carroll would have had to pay more legal fees to challenge it since she brought the defamation case? But with the Knight Bond civil fraud case, it's the state?(tax payers?) 

Expand full comment

Spot on again, Seth! Letitia James objects for precisely the reasons you gave two weeks ago when the bond was posted. It's why we subscribe: accuracy, detail and speed. Unbeatable.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Apr 7
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

I was wondering if the appeals court could rescind their lower bond amount and put it back to the full amount plus interest.

Expand full comment

Good question.

Expand full comment