I don't know whether it was because work at the office slowed during February or because the football season was over. But Valentine's Day was the time my father chose to show his love for the special people in his life. Over the years I fondly2 thought of him as my "Valentine Man."

My first recollection3 of the magic4 he could bring to Valentine's Day came when I was six. For several days I had been cutting out valentines for my classmates. Each of us was to decorate a "mailbox" and put it on our desk for others to give us cards. That box and its contents ushered in5 a succession6 of bittersweet7 memories of my entrance into a world of popularity8 contests marked by the number of cards received, the teasing about boyfriends/girlfriends and the tender care I gave to the card from the cutest boy in class.

That morning at the breakfast table I found a card and a gift- wrapped package at my chair. The card was signed "Love, Dad", and the gift was a ring with a small piece of red glass to represent my birthstone9, a ruby10. There is little difference between red glass and rubies to a child of six, and I remember wearing that ring with a pride that all the cards in the world could not surpass11.

As I grew older, the gifts gave way to heart shaped boxes filled with my favorite chocolates and always included a special card signed "Love, Dad". In those years my "thank-yous" became more of a perfunctory12 response. The cards seemed less important, and I took for granted the valentine that would always be there. Long past the days of having a "mailbox" on my desk, I had placed my hopes and dreams in receiving cards and gifts from "significant others", and "Love, Dad" just didn't seem quite enough.

If my father knew then that he had been replaced, he never let it show. If he sensed any disappointment over valentines that didn't arrive for me, he just tried that much harder to create a positive atmosphere, giving me an extra hug and doing what he could to make my day a little brighter.

My mailbox eventually had a rural address, and the job of hand delivering candy and cards was relegated13 to the U.S. Postal Service. Never in ten years was my father's package late-- nor was it on the Valentine's Day eight years ago when I reached into the mailbox to find a card addressed to me in my mother's handwriting.

It was the kind of card that comes in an inexpensive assortment14 box sold by a child going door-to-door to try to earn money for a school project. It was the kind of card that you used to get from a grandmother or an aging aunt or, in this case, a dying father. It was the kind of card that put a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes because you knew the person no longer was able to go out and buy a real valentine. It was a card that signaled15 this would be the last you receive from him.

The card had a photograph of tulips16 on the outside, and on the inside my mother had printed "Happy Valentine's Day". Beneath it, scrawled17 in barely legible18 handwriting, was "Love, Dad".

His final card remains on my bulletin board today. It's a reminder of how special fathers can be and how important it had been to me over the years to know that I had a father who continued a tradition of love with a generosity of spirit, simple acts of understanding and an ability to express happiness over the people in his life.

Those things never die, nor does the memory of a man who never stopped being my valentine.

Norm Eisen

Courtesy of Norm Eisen

In the Bragg case, Trump is charged with covering up hush money payments he made to Stormy Daniels to keep voters from knowing about their alleged affair, out of fears that it would harm his 2016 presidential campaign. (Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies the affair.) The case had been set for trial on March 25 when a last-minute flood of thousands of documents from the files of federal prosecutors in response to a Trump subpoena led the judge to postpone the trial to mid-April and schedule an evidentiary hearing on what happened to commence Monday.

Andrew Warren

State Attorney's Office

Despite some (not unusual) hiccups and characteristically vigorous delay efforts from the Trump team, we expect the hearing to conclude with an April trial date intact. If we are correct about that, Trump could finally face a criminal jury in what has been “an important case for democracy” since the grand jury filed charges nearly one year ago.

We think the details of the dispute suggest the trial date will not materially move again. On March 8, Trump accused the DA of discovery violations and worse – such as the patently absurd suggestion of working with Daniels to “hide” the release of her upcoming documentary. Trump asked the court yet again to dismiss the indictment, following earlier unsuccessful efforts, or in the alternative to preclude Daniels and Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, from testifying – which he had already previously tried and failed to do. He also sought a 90-day adjournment to review the newly produced records.

The DA’s office quickly agreed to a 30-day adjournment as sufficient to allow Trump (as well as the DA’s office) to review the well-over 100,000-page production by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (USAO-SDNY). The court granted this request. Then, last week, the DA’s office informed the court that the vast majority of this material was immaterial or duplicative.

As criminal law practitioners with more than a half century of experience and many trials between us, the 30-day adjournment already in effect seems more than sufficient to allow Trump a “meaningful opportunity” to review the materials in advance of trial. The DA contends that the vast majority of the records are irrelevant and that after initial review the important materials constituted fewer than 270 documents relating to one of the key witnesses (Cohen).

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The DA makes a fair point with his emphatic pushback against Trump’s allegations of discovery violations. Trump – and to an extent USAO-SDNY – appears to be responsible for the timing of the production, not the DA. The DA asked SDNY for a substantial production of documents over a year ago; SDNY held back many documents. Then Trump waited until just a few months before trial before deciding to subpoena the materials – and SDNY then let loose the flood. The DA is hardly to be blamed for that.

On this record we tend to agree with the DA that “enough is enough,” and that it is time to proceed to trial. Judge Juan Merchan is quite properly allowing Trump to have a hearing and ventilate his concerns. But it appears that all of the documents have now been produced and we think that the hearing slated to begin Monday will be followed by a prompt order to proceed to trial.

Some say that this case, too, serves as an example of Trump’s success at delaying prosecution against him. But if, as we expect, the trial begins in or around mid-April, that ploy will have failed.

But that is only part of the legal trouble Trump faced last week. The second blow comes from the office of the New York attorney general, in the aftermath of her successful civil prosecution of Trump, his sons Donald, Jr. and Eric, and other Trump Organization businesses and former executives who contested the allegations. In February, following a two-month trial that ended in December with closing arguments in January, Judge Arthur Engoron brought down the hammer with a $354,868,768 judgment against Trump for a decade’s worth of lies at his organization. With interest, Trump’s final bill was approximately $454 million.

Trump apparently approached about 30 companies to secure this vast sum but found no takers. On March 18, Trump’s lawyers told the court that it was a “practical impossibility” to secure such a large bond. They asked the court for a stay, or to allow a bond of $100 million. The AG’s office responded that there is no legal justification for a stay and Trump can secure multiple smaller bonds to satisfy his judgment.

Setting aside the logistical hurdles of ponying up nearly half-a-billion dollars cash (whether directly or by obtaining a bond secured by illiquid assets), the practical reality is that the consequences of Engoron’s fraud ruling are starting to take hold. Raising this money is not going to be easy. Trump had 30 days to satisfy the February 16 judgment and, as of Monday, time is up.

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James has been prepared for this possibility. Shortly after the court’s ruling, James said she would be prepared to take the appropriate legal steps to enforce the judgment, including seizing Trump’s assets, to ensure that he pays his debt to the state of New York. As promised, James is doing exactly that. Last week she filed what is in effect a blanket lien on Trump’s property in Westchester County, NY, including his Seven Springs property that was one subject of the fraud trial. The court concluded the Trump Organization valued Seven Springs on its books at $161 million despite several appraisals putting the value between $5.5 to $21 million.