“Donald Trump has faced no shortage of legal peril since leaving office,” Politico reports.
“But few cases have mattered more to him on a personal level than the civil fraud trial over his business practices in New York… Trump has publicly fumed over the low valuation of his oceanfront Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago, and made a point to show up in person to defend himself in court.
”“And few verdicts could affect his carefully cultivated reputation as a businessperson more than the one issued in that trial on Friday, in which the former president was hit with over $350 million in penalties by a judge for falsely inflating his net worth to get more favorable rates from banks and insurers.”
Said Trump biographer Tim O’Brien: “He views these judgments as a kind of existential threat to his entire brand. It will wear at him psychologically.”