Big day for Trump in NYC city today.
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Criminal Trial**
Opening arguments, first witness I think today and tomorrow trial ends by 2PM.
Judge is issuing "Sandoval ruling" indicating what prosecutors can question Trump on if he testifies.
Bond Hearing
Leticia James has questioned if Knight Specialty Insurance Company can put the bond in NY Fraud case. They are also in court today. I think this is a risk to Trump.
I think there's a nonzero chance they will say this company cannot put up a bond. If that is the case, Trump will have 7 days to find a new bond. In short, by the end of today, it's possible his assets are not protected.
BIG NEWS They have reached an agreement on one of the big issues in the bond hearing. Trump will make changes to the collateral agreement. This might be enough to settle everything. See comments below.
Opening arguments have started. Prosecution has like 45 minutes, then defense 25 minutes.
Trump comments on both trials today outside courtroom. Video https://x.com/TONYxTWO/status/1782406953265709194
I had a couple of threads on the bonding company before and there do seem to be issues, their first filing didn't even include the the lawyer's signature or the company's financial information.
Then when they fixed this, they included two companie's info. One US company and then its parent company in the Cayman Islands.
Here's what they are going to argue today.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24558931/452564_2022_people_of_the_state_of_v_people_of_the_state_of_memorandum_of_law_i_1738.pdf
Knight Specialty Insurance company has failed to justify the bond because
If the Judge, Judge Engoron by the way, allows Knight Specialty to put this up, I suspect it will be only after the collateral agreement is changed. But there's a real chance this gets rejected.
Rachel Scharf @rscharf_ 13m
I think my instincts might be correct.
It looks like they are looking at a compromise.
They have taken a break to work out a settlement
https://x.com/rscharf_/status/1782430881329672249
AGREEMENT REACHED: Kise says they'll agree to maintain the Schwab account in cash and give Knight exclusive control of the account. Under a previous agreement, a Trump trust shared control. Seems like this will moot the AG's challenge to the bond.
it's over Andrew Amer says "the AG is fine with all these conditions stipulated on the record."
Judge accepts it, and court is adjourned.
I do wonder if Trump would selectively allow himself to be jailed. He could perhaps time it to only spend a day or two in there on the weakest of the cases.
Get the credibility, enjoy the media circus that would be insane, and most importantly: set the precedent.
There are going to be a lot of perp walks that will be easier to digest once Trump has gone first.
David Pecker publisher of the National Enquirer is the first witness. He is testifying now.