In just the first of many civil suits to conclude against Donald Trump and Trump University, a jury in one of the cases handed Trump a 500 million dollar judgement against him.
Exposing the gap between what The Don says he's worth and the reality, the real estate magnate who has claimed to be worth 20 billion dollars, now says the 500 million dollar judgement will bankrupt him.
After Trump attorneys exhausted all appeals to reduce the amount of the judgement, they then claimed the real estate tycoon was unable to pay the 500 million. At that point Judge Ito angrily ordered Trump to reveal his financial details to the court.
Later, overriding the objections of Trump's attorneys, Ito allowed Trump's financial transcripts to remain a matter of public record.
High Debt, No Cash
While the Don claims he is worth nearly 20 billion dollars, an accurate reading of the documents submitted to the court shows he has only 5.6 billion in assets and almost the same amount, 5.4 billion, in debt: In other words, Trump only has a net worth of about 200 million, and that's just a paper profit, he has no cash or liquid assets.
Most likely the people who were ripped off by Trump University will have to wait for their money as Trump files for bankruptcy in order to delay and reduce any payments he will eventually have to make.
Judge Ito also denied Trump's request to pay the judgement in his failed world currency the TrumpMark.
Judge Ito Refuses To Recuse Himself
Three previous judges, all Hispanic, have already recused themselves from the case after Trump claimed they could not be fair because of their Mexican heritage, even though they are all US born citizens.
Now Trump is publicly dissing the current judge saying Judge Ito's Japanese heritage makes it impossible for him to be impartial.
"Look, he's Japanese," Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper, "we nuked their country, it's just a conflict of interest for him to preside on this case."
TV judges Judge Judy and Judge Brown are on a list of alternate judges, but so far Judge Ito has dismissed motions from Trump attorneys to recuse himself.
Ito is famous for presiding over the Keystonian O.J. Simpson trial and he came out of retirement to preside over the penalty phase of the Trump lawsuit.
Tema Hecht, attorney and Spoof legal analyst, told this reporter, "The reason all the judges recused themselves is they don't want to be the reason that Trump gets an appeal. But his latest claims about Judge Ito's Japanese heritage and World War II history are just too far fetched and not likely to win over any judge that's sober."
