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Donald Trump civil fraud trial developments · Kvetch & Release

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  The big story right now that's hitting everyone's television screens and cell phones quite frankly,
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  is the ongoing legal battles with the former President of the United States Donald
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  Trump and these civil fraud trial latest developments. Joining me right now is reporter
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  and anchor from CTV National News Tony Grace, to break this all down for
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  us. Tony, how you doing, Hey, John, Good to be
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  with you. Great to have you here. Can you please tell us a
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  little bit more about today's ruling by the judge in this civil fraud kit trial.
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  Right And if you've kind of gotten lost as to where this is all
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  going with all of Donald Trump's legal cases, John, you'd be forgiven,
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  because there are a lot to keep track of right now. There are four
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  different criminal cases and then of course there's the fallout from this civil legal trial,
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  this civil fraud case. So let's take a look at what happened today.
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  Walk you back to February. That's when a judge basically imposed a four
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  hundred and fifty four million dollar penalty onto Donald Trump after finding him guilty in
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  a civil fraud case. And that was the case where the judge had ruled
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  the Trump it overvalued his assets in order to get favorable terms on loans.
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  So four hundred and fifty four million dollar penalty comes down in February. Trump's
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  teams indicate right away that they're going to appeal it. But in the meantime,
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  there was a clock kicking on the New York Attorney General's Office and the
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  Legal Department collecting that four hundred and fifty four million, and by the way,
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  it was growing by the day because of interest. So today an appeal
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  court decided that they're going to stop the clock. They're going to hold off
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  collecting that four hundred and fifty four million if Trump pays a one hundred and
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  seventy five million dollar bond within ten days. So they're seeing this as a
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  big legal victory because Trump's team wants to keep appealing this. Now there's a
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  much smaller penalty sort of amount to put up. I mean, one hundred
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  and seventy five millions, not small to any of us, but it's it's,
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  you know, only a third or so of what he was originally faced
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  with having to put up by today and by wait, today was the deadline
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  for the four hundred and fifty four million. So this buys the team some
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  more time to appeal this case, and it's a smaller amount that they've got
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  to find. Remember, his lawyers said just last week that they were having
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  trouble finding sources to cover four hundred and fifty four million. They were having
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  trouble finding underwriters, and if it wasn't paid by today, he had also
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  faced the prospect of having some assets ceased. So this stops the quop,
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  it allows the team to go forward with that appeal, and it imposes a
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  much smaller amount for now on the former president in this case, John,
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  is their ability that the prosecution is able to go and appeal the appeal.
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  That's a good question, and I'm not a legal expert, so I can't
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  tell you that right now. But what I can tell you is that the
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  New York Attorney General, Letitia James, made a point today of saying,
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  you know, the judgment still stands against Donald Trump. So there is an
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  indication that they have every intention of continuing to try to collect a larger amount.
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  At the moment, though, everything's on hold. And Trump says he
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  will pay this one hundred and seventy five million, either by cash or by
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  bond to stop the clock here and to move ahead with that appeal, and
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  this was not the only court hearing today for the former president. Tell us
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  a little bit about the hush money case. That's right, And this,
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  by the way, the hush money case is where Donald Trump appeared in person
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  today. This is a case that concerns criminal charges over a hush money payment
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  that was paid way back in twenty sixteen to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
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  So this is one of four criminal cases that the former president is facing.
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  And this was the one that looked like it was going to move to trial
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  the soonest and this was the one that had everybody going, how is this
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  going to affect an election campaign? And now we know it is the first
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  one that will go to trial before the election. April fifteenth, John,
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  that's the date they've set to start selecting the jury for this so called hush
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  money payment trial. And that's going to get underway in less than a month
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  April the fifteenth, actually just a few weeks from now. So essentially what's
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  going to happen is you're going to have that playing out while the election campaign
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  ramps up and while Donald Trump prepares for what's expected to be you know,
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  a rematch between him and current President Joe Biden. This fall coming to you
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  soon on the next episode of America, right exactly. And by the way,
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  there are those three other criminal cases as well. Two of them,
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  of course, have to do with election interference. One of them is federal
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  charges, another is out of Fulton County, Georgia. And then there's a
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  there's the case over the classified documents as well that Trump was found of taken
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  after his presidency, after leaving the White House. So you've got all those
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  playing out. But you know, and Trump, by the way, for
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  his part, is insisting today that all of this continues to be, you
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  know, a campaign against him by by political foes, by political rivals,
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  by people who, in his words, he described as corrupt within the legal
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  system. And he said that setting this date of April fifteenth for the hush
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  money trial to begin is in itself election interference, you know, and ironic
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  comment, some have pointed out, because since election interference is the charge he's
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  facing two of those other cases. So yeah, John, there's a lot
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  to watch here. And the intersection of you know, the legal system in
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  politics is something that happens a lot in the first place, but perhaps no
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  more high profile than in this situation that's playing out right south of our border.
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  Nobody really has any experience with any of this right now, we're all
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  just watching it as it goes. Yeah, it's uncharred and territory on many
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  fronts. And the April fifteenth is kind of when we'll have the next idea
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  of how perhaps how quickly this might move along, this first criminal trial.
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  But one Republican strategist I was speaking to today, John told me, you
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  know the difference with this hush money trial and the other ones. The other
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  ones have a lot of layers, and they involve documents and business dealing and
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  and and and numbers. This one really involves a question of morality and character
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  as well as the actual whatever happened with the payment itself, or whatever happened
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  to to allegedly try to suppress the news of the payment itself. So this
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  is one trial that analysts are saying could reveal some personal things about Donald Trump
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  that perhaps even his base doesn't want to hear. But of course it's expected
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  they will stick with him politically throughout this. Yeah, they're they're they're pretty
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  well tied on to him. Tony, I want to thank you so much
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  for your time today and for breaking this all down for us. Okay,
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  have a good day, John, appreciate it you as well. Thank you
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  so much. Tony Grace is a reporter and anchor of CTV National News