Former President Donald Trump faces a March 25 deadline to pay a $464 million bond to the state of New York in the civil fraud case.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case against the former president, has given President Trump until the end of Monday to pay the almost half-a-billion-dollar bond, which he must submit before he can appeal the judgment against him.
Judge Arthur Engoron in February found President Trump personally liable for $454 million for fraudulently representing his net worth to secure favorable loans.
Ms. James has said that if he fails to pay, she will start taking action to seize his assets.
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” she told ABC News in February.
Earlier this week, Ms. James filed judgments in Westchester County, north of New York City, a move seen as an initial step to seizing properties that President Trump owns in the area: the Seven Springs estate and the Trump National Golf Course Westchester.
President Trump’s lawyers said in a filing that the bond was “impossible,” adding that they approached 30 brokers and none were willing to cover the amount.
Meanwhile, President Trump has asked the state appeals court to reduce the bond amount to $100 million. But it is unclear if the court will rule by March 25.
How Could He Finance It?
President Trump had previously suggested that the bond could force him to hold a “fire sale” of his properties, but this does not appear to have happened.
The former president’s social media company, Truth Social, is set to go public sometime this week after shareholders approved a merger on March 22. This listing could immediately double the former president’s net worth and rake him a windfall of as much as $3 billion. But President Trump won’t be able to cash out for six months due to a lockout provision in the deal.
In any event, President Trump says he doesn’t intend to give any of that money to New York, vowing to fight the decision all the way to the Supreme Court.
Just because he stands to make a huge profit on the listing, President Trump told Fox News on Friday, it “doesn’t mean I’m going to give money to a rogue and incompetent judge—the puppet of a corrupt attorney general who’s failing with violent crime and migrant crime and whose only purpose in life is attempting to get Trump.”
He added, “I’ll fight this all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. They can’t take away your property before you’ve had a chance to appeal the decision of a Trump-hating, incompetent judge who has been overturned more than any judge in the state.”
Instead, President Trump appeared to suggest on Friday that he has gathered enough to pay the bond “through hard work, talent, and luck,” but only by moving a “substantial amount” of money previously earmarked for his campaign. In a social media post, President Trump said he had almost $500 million in cash.
‘Election Interference’
President Trump and his allies have characterized this bid to dispossess him of his property as “lawfare” and “election interference” intentionally designed to divert resources away from his presidential campaign.
Eric Trump, son of the former president and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said as much during a March 24 appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“There was no victim,” Mr. Trump said, citing banks’ consistent testimony that President Trump was an upstanding borrower and customer. “This is a crooked system with a crooked attorney general in a crooked court that literally wants to put my father out of business.”
“My father has run a great company. I run a great company,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve never had a default. We’ve never missed a payment. We’ve never been in a breach of covenant.”
When representatives of President Trump’s bank gave testimony as the alleged victims in the case, they said that Deutsche Bank itself never made any claims of fraud or malfeasance against President Trump—the allegations all came from Ms. James.
A Deutsche Bank executive also testified that no crime occurred, as it isn’t unusual for a bank to cut a client’s stated asset value—even by half—and still approve a loan, just like it did with President Trump.
Eric Trump suggested that the real goal of the proceedings is to hurt President Trump’s reelection bid.
“This is lawfare. They want to hurt my father, who is winning the presidential race right now,” Mr. Trump said, citing polls showing that President Trump is beating President Joe Biden in every crucial swing state.
The effect of the massive judgment, Mr. Trump said, is “election interference” that diverts crucial resources away from President Trump’s campaign.
If President Trump does indeed have the cash on hand to pay the bond, Ms. James will be unable to take further steps to seize his assets.
Catherine Yang, Jack Phillips, and Andrew Moran contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
