Donald Trump and his co-defendants on Monday secured a $175 million bond in their civil fraud case in New York after an appeals court agreed to throw them a bone last week, temporarily reducing the $454 million judgment handed down to them as an appeals process plays out.
The posting of the bond will keep New York authorities, including Attorney General Letitia James, from seizing his assets, including some of his prized real estate properties. The sum was issued by the Knight Specialty Insurance Company, a California-based firm, according to a court filing.
Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement that he was looking forward “to vindicating his rights on appeal and overturning this unjust verdict.”
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Later, Trump took to Truth Social to express his dissatisfaction with the case, pointing the finger at the usual suspects. “I’ve just posted a 175 Million Dollar Bond with the sadly failing and very troubled State of New York, based on a Corrupt Judge and Attorney General who used a Statute that was never used for this before, where no Jury was allowed, my financial statements were conservative and had a 100% perfect caution/non-reliance clause, there were no victims (except me!), there was no crime or damage, there was only success and HAPPY BANKS,” Trump said, adding “also posted a 91 Million Dollar Bond on another New York Fake Case, money I can’t use on my campaign. Just what Crooked Joe wanted. WITCH HUNT!”
The $454 million penalty was handed down to Trump, the Trump Organization, his two adult sons, and two former executives after Judge Arthur Engoron agreed with James in February that they had inflated the value of Trump’s properties to secure favorable loans.
Engoron initially imposed a $355 million judgment, which would eventually tick up to $454 million with interest.
Upon Engoron’s ruling, James could have moved immediately to collect on Trump, but her office said it would allow him a 30-day grace period, until March 25, to settle his tab. But she warned that her office would make good one way or another.
“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.
A week before the deadline, Trump’s lawyers whined that securing the full sum was a “practical impossibility,” listing more than 30 surety companies that had spurned them to date. The former president simply did not have the cash or liquid asset to satisfy the underwriters’ demand for collateral, his legal team said.
A New York state appeals court gave the group of co-defendants some breathing room in an 11th-hour ruling last Monday, giving them 10 extra days to post a reduced bond.
Should Trump’s appeal be rejected, he will have to settle his larger outstanding bill, which is continuing to grow by more than $111,000 a day as interest continues to amass.
The former president has denied wrongdoing in the matter, as well as in the four pending criminal cases against him.
Around the same time the former president posted his bond, New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan—who is overseeing Trump’s hush money case—approved the expansion of a gag order preventing him from publicly eviscerating not just anyone involved in the criminal case, but also their family members.
Merchan’s expansion came after Trump went after not just him, but his daughter, claiming on Truth Social that Loren Merchan was a “a Rabid Trump Hater” whose political work and alleged social media activity made it “completely impossible for me to get a fair trial.”
In a five-page ruling, Merchan raked Trump over the coals for his “pattern” of attacking the relatives of those involved in his cases, saying it served “no legitimate purpose” beyond fearmongering.
That the full weight of his hometown legal system is crashing down on his head has not been lost on the former president. “It’s all rigged. It’s a rigged city, it’s a rigged state, which is a shame,” he complained to reporters earlier this year.
