From Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to Trump Tower on Wall Street, from Trump World Tower next to the United Nations to the Trump International Hotel overlooking Central Park, Donald Trump has stamped himself in gold letters on New York City’s skyscrapers name.
The real estate empire was Trump’s springboard from tabloid news personality to reality TV star and eventually to the presidency, all built on his self-created image as America’s most famous businessman.
While Trump’s business acumen and the true scale of his wealth have long been questioned, a New York judge on Friday forever tarnished his gilded image, finding Trump and his allies guilty of fraud that “shocks the conscience” and “Forever tarnished his gilded image.” The lack of repentance and remorse is bordering on pathological.”
Trump was ordered to pay $354.9 million and banned from leading a business in New York for three years after a court found that he and his associates fraudulently inflated his net worth. The future of the Trump Organization looks uncertain as it emerges from the family’s control.
For decades, the former president portrayed himself as a brash, bronzed, brilliant businessman dominating the Manhattan skyline. Whether he’s speaking to Apprentice contestants, wooing voters, or bragging to other world leaders, he can point to a dozen Trump-branded towers as evidence of everything he’s accomplished.
Trump is “the quintessential businessman—the unparalleled dealmaker” and, according to his own company, his name “is synonymous with the most prestigious address”: “the definition of the American success story.”
But Judge Arthur Ngolon’s ruling was a shocking blow to that image. The buildings that once symbolized the former president’s fame and fortune will remain overseen by court-appointed monitors for years. Currently, Trump has lost control of the company that once provided him with a stage.
Yet even as he separates from his business empire, his political machine is preparing to push him back into the Oval Office.
Despite these legal woes, Trump moves closer to the Republican nomination. He sought to use this trial, and others he faced, to fund his comeback campaign. He told loyal supporters it amounted to a politicized “witch hunt” and suggested the real target was them, not him.
Minutes after Trump left the first day of his October civil fraud trial, his machine sent out a fundraising email. “I’m just leaving the courthouse,” it began, claiming politicians were “weaponizing the legal system in an attempt to destroy me completely” and asking for “donations of any amount – Really, even if it’s just $1 – Peacefully defend our movement from never-ending political persecution”.
The Trump Organization faced public forensic scrutiny for the first time in 11 weeks in a Manhattan courtroom. The company claims to have “set a new standard of excellence” and made Trump “arguably the preeminent luxury real estate developer” in the world. Ngolon takes a completely different view.
Before the trial began, he ruled that the former president Committed fraud over many years by inflating the value of its assets.
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Now, after hearing the evidence, Ngolon has imposed eye-popping financial penalties. How Trump will pay for the bill is an open question. Although his fortune is approximately $2.3 billion, much of it is tied to the business empire at the heart of this case.
Money is still flowing in. Trump has proven to be an efficient fundraiser. His campaign raised about $44 million late last year. His legal battle appears to have provided an extra boost.
But in addition to his campaign to retake the presidency, Trump now faces legal penalties that could destroy what he says is a personal hoard of cash at his disposal. Even before Friday’s decision, he was ordered to pay $83.3 million to E Jean Carroll. The former president claimed in a deposition last year that he had “well over” $400 million – a huge amount of money that will be wiped out by these bills.
But this process still has a long way to go. “There is enough uncertainty that this is not an imminent issue,” said Syracuse University law professor Gregory Germain. Trump has appealed Ngolon’s preliminary ruling, This decision is widely expected to do the same.
On the campaign trail, on social media, in the courts and in the inboxes of his supporters, the former president repeatedly promised to fight what he saw as grave injustices. On Friday, Trump renewed his attack on “authoritarian abuses of power” that he claimed were directed at him and his “fluid and beautiful corporate empire that began in New York and has succeeded around the world.”
In November, the American people will decide whose story they believe.
