When Tim Eyman declared bank­rupt­cy back in Novem­ber of 2018, he told his fol­low­ers, the press, and the pub­lic that it was “my only option” and that he was at “the break­ing point” because of “the gov­ern­men­t’s bru­tal six year per­se­cu­tion of me and my fam­i­ly” (a ref­er­ence to the State’s cam­paign finance suits against him).

Cit­ing mount­ing legal bills from his attor­neys and a post­poned tri­al date (a delay caused by his own stonewalling), Eyman declared to the world that bank­rupt­cy (along with divorce from his wife Karen) was the only pos­si­ble way forward.

But what Eyman neglect­ed to men­tion in that woe-is-me email and in sub­se­quent emails plead­ing for mon­ey to his legal defense fund is that his bank­rupt­cy fil­ing is based on the assump­tion that Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son’s office will be suc­cess­ful in win­ning a very large, $2.1 mil­lion judg­ment against him.

That has­n’t hap­pened yet and it can’t hap­pen before Jan­u­ary of next year, when the tri­al in the main State of Wash­ing­ton v. Tim Eyman case will take place. It is pos­si­ble that Eyman and Fer­gu­son could reach a mutu­al­ly accept­able set­tle­ment agree­ment before­hand that entails Eyman pay­ing a large penal­ty, but that seems unlikely.

In the mean­time, despite hav­ing filed for bank­rupt­cy, Eyman has plen­ty of mon­ey avail­able for his needs and wants, despite his I’m broke, please help me act.

How do we know? Because a con­se­quence of fil­ing for bank­rupt­cy is putting your finan­cial cards on the table (so to speak). Eyman is required to reg­u­lar­ly share infor­ma­tion about his finances with the Unit­ed States Bank­rupt­cy Court.

Accord­ing to the lat­est report he filed, dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 11th, 2019 Eyman has $465,615.94 in check­ing accounts at three finan­cial insti­tu­tions (Bank of Amer­i­ca, Key­Bank, and Her­itage Bank), $3,755.53 in his sav­ings accounts, $207,571 in retire­ment accounts, and $573,281.56 in addi­tion­al per­son­al property.

He also lists his Har­bour Pointe home as an asset, val­ued at $900,000.

Against these total assets of $2,150,224.03, Eyman reports $3,177,000 in unse­cured debt. Again, most of that unse­cured debt is a pos­si­ble future judg­ment against him for cam­paign finance vio­la­tions he could have eas­i­ly avoided.

For the month of Jan­u­ary 2019, Eyman report­ed total dis­burse­ments of $17,842.80 along with $29,626.16 in receipts, which he describes as “gifts for legal defense fund for legal costs, bank­rupt­cy costs, and oth­er gov­ern­ment charges”.

View the first four pages of this report for your­self below:

It is clear from the doc­u­men­ta­tion that Eyman pro­vid­ed to the court that he and his wife Karen (who are not yet divorced) have the means to enjoy life and take care of not only their needs and chil­dren’s needs, but wants as well.

The Eymans dine out fre­quent­ly at fine restau­rants, occa­sion­al­ly spend­ing hun­dreds of dol­lars in a sin­gle out­ing. They goes out to the movies. They appear (judg­ing from their cable bill) to have one of the best pack­ages that Com­cast offers. They shop often, too, at stores like Nord­strom, Hob­by Lob­by, and… yes, Office Depot.

Like his idol Don­ald Trump, who has a long his­to­ry of exploit­ing fed­er­al bank­rupt­cy statute for his own gain, Eyman’s objec­tive once again appears to be evad­ing account­abil­i­ty for his wrong­do­ing so that he can keep his ini­tia­tive fac­to­ry in busi­ness for years to come and con­tin­ue to enjoy an afflu­ent lifestyle.

It is real­ly a shame that leg­endary KOMO com­men­ta­tor Ken Schram isn’t around today to give us his take on all of this. Schram, who passed away in 2014, was one of the very first peo­ple in Wash­ing­ton’s mass media to see right through Eyman. Schram reg­u­lar­ly denounced Eyman as a con man, a pho­ny, and a scam artist, pick­ing apart Eyman’s fre­quent fundrais­ing appeals in bit­ing commentaries.

Here’s one of those com­men­taries, from July 11th, 2002… a time when, like now, Tim Eyman was in legal trou­ble for vio­lat­ing our pub­lic dis­clo­sure laws.

KEN SCHRAM: I’m tryin’ to iron out this new Tim Eyman wrinkle.

Let’s see if I got it right:

Tim’s ask­ing peo­ple to send him mon­ey to bail him out of the trou­ble he’s in for tak­ing mon­ey that at one time he said he nev­er took.

Now, since Tim cer­tain­ly could­n’t pay tax­es on mon­ey he lied about tak­ing, he’s in that hole.

And, since he got caught with cam­paign dol­lars stuck to his fin­gers, Tim’s also being sued by the state.

Which means he’s got legal bills and fines like­ly lurk­ing in his future.

And so, that’s why Tim has come back to the peo­ple whose mon­ey he took, ask­ing them to send him more money.

I’ve now got a whole new image of Tim now.

I see a Tim who’s not too proud to beg; a Tim who’s not afraid of stoop­ing to new lows.

I see a Tim who’s not ashamed to say, ‘Sure, I took your mon­ey before and lied about it. But send me your mon­ey now and I’ll tell you the truth: It’s for me. All of it. Every pen­ny goes into my pocket.’

Me? I think Tim can go out and earn all the mon­ey he wants.

He should just hit the pro­fes­sion­al ten­nis circuit.

He’s already got all the rack­et he’ll ever need.

Sev­en­teen years lat­er, his­to­ry is repeat­ing itself… on a grander scale.