OPINION:
Turns out Donald Trump’s legal instincts are as good as his political instincts, which are as good as his marketing instincts — all of which are as perfect as a Ukrainian phone call.
In what should have been the worst day of Mr. Trump’s career, Monday turned into one of his best.
You’ve got to hand it to the guy; he’s got the Midas touch. Maybe that’s why everything he builds — including his toilet fixtures — are gold.
He walked into a Manhattan courtroom facing fines of nearly $500 million for what was expected to spark a fire sale of his properties. The media staked out his buildings to watch the padlocks come out. Others predicted that New York authorities would seize his bank accounts.
Mr. Trump’s own lawyers said last week that he could not afford to pay the massive fines. Then Mr. Trump contradicted them by saying that he had the cash but that he was saving it for his presidential campaign.
His best options, according to even supporters inside Trump World, were to hand over the keys to Trump Tower or declare bankruptcy.
It was a high-stakes game that would crush any normal person. But Mr. Trump is not a normal person.
He thrived.
A New York appellate court rejected the absurd and arbitrary $454 million fine due Monday, slashing it by more than 60% and giving him 10 more days to pay it. Mr. Trump immediately agreed to pay the $175 million fine so that he could get on with appealing the whole ridiculous case.
The only fire sale on Monday, it turned out, was on the fine levied against Mr. Trump.
In the standoff between the New York court system and Donald Trump, the New York court system blinked. On Judgment Day for Mr. Trump, New York Attorney General Letitia James got spanked.
But it is worth noting that the $175 million bond that Mr. Trump agreed to pay is no less absurd or arbitrary than the original $454 million, as was the amount by which it got slashed.
The dollar amounts are tied to nothing.
“The whole case is about damages, and there were no damages,” Mr. Trump said after leaving the courthouse.
Instead, the whole case brought by “Biden and his thugs” is about “election interference,” he declared as he swatted away a fly.
For those of us who had the decency not to go to law school, it can all be terribly confusing.
The fine is supposed to be a bond, which is designed to keep a defendant from fleeing while the courts figure out the case.
For years now, Democratic politicians have run campaigns against cash bonds for even the most violent criminals, which helps explain why cities run by Democrats today are awash in crime. Vice President Kamala Harris is so opposed to bonds, you may recall, that she raised money to get criminals out of jail during the riots of 2020.
Finally, however, Democrats have found a bond they support, so long as it jails or bankrupts Donald Trump — their top political enemy, who they realize is going to beat them in the next election.
The bond for mega-fraudster Bernie Madoff, who bilked thousands of victims out of tens of billions of dollars, was $10 million. For Mr. Trump, who bilked no one out of anything, it was 50 times as high.
Anyway, the figure is still pointless, given that the vast majority of Mr. Trump’s wealth is tied up in high-profile properties.
Only the most extreme cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome lead someone to believe that Mr. Trump, the most famous man in the world, is going to flee the country with Trump Tower in his suitcase along with several golf courses in his carry-on luggage.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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