Trump's work week starts off poorly.
The judge in the civil case is weighing if Trump should be held in contempt for blatantly ignoring subpoenas.
"Surely those subpoenas were issued in bad faith and unConstitutional!"
The judge does not believe that.
The NY AG asked for Trump, you know, the guy who owns and runs Trump Org, to hand over their records. Trump refused. Or more accurately, Trump's lawyers claimed they looked around really hard but didn't find any records of the business he owns and runs. Oh, and then called this a publicity stunt.
Dear defendants: this is how you get
no-knock raided.
From the sounds of things, NY is asking for $10,000 a day of refusal, plus additional costs caused by the delay. I believe this is a warning shot. If Trump refuses to turn over the records that any competent CEO would have, and also refuses to pay those contempt charges (if applied), then these two factors are themselves evidence for the case itself.
I'll let @
cubby call the shots, but I believe if Trump refuses to comply with the legally and Constitutional subpoena, one or more of three things will happen.
One, his various homes get raided. Anything in NYState is fair game.
Two, the penalties rise. After a demonstrated time period of noncompliance, $10,000 a day gets an extra zero or Trump has to testify why he's not complying...or just flat-out jailed. These might be civil charges, but refusing to comply with a legal warrant/subpoena is still a bad idea.
Three, a directed verdict. In an Alex Jones kind of way, if NYState can provide compelling evidence and Trump's only defense is "WITCH HUNT!" then the judge might simply shrug and say "well I'm siding with the side taking this seriously" and just rule in the AG's favor. This would, of course, be crippling for Trump. By Trump's own admission, he's been under audit since 2001. Just randomly making up numbers here to get an idea of context, but if Trump undervalued his properties by $100 million to avoid paying taxes each year, NYState could very realistically claim they're due 10% of that gap, or $220 million. And I'm fairly sure that's lowballing it.