Charged with paying $454 million by the end of the month after New York Attorney General Letitia James’s civil fraud case verdict was returned, former President Donald Trump is having trouble raising the sum through an insurance company-issued bond, a common way to post payment while awaiting appeal.
“The amount of the judgment, with interest, exceeds $464 million, and very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching that magnitude,” Trump’s lawyers said. CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins shared the tweet below, quoting Trump’s lawyers on the trouble they’ve had securing a bond.
Trump has been unable to find an insurance company to underwrite his bond to cover the $454 million judgment in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case, his lawyers said today. “The amount of the judgment, with interest, exceeds $464 million, and very few bonding…
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 18, 2024
Navy veteran Jared Ryan Sears, who analyzes data and policy at the Pragmatic Humanist substack, asks a pointed question other Trump antagonists have been asking about the reality of Trump’s wealth — the inflation of which was notably at the heart of James’s fraud case.
Sears asks: “When a billionaire can’t pay a judgement below $500 million, are they really a billionaire?”
When a “billionaire” can’t pay a judgement below $500 million, are they really a billionaire?
This is what happens when Trump is held accountable. His lies catch up with him very quickly. Trump and his lawyers kept saying they had the money and yet have continually been unable…
— Jared Ryan Sears (@JaredRyanSears) March 18, 2024
There is, of course, a difference between liquid assets and those tied up in real estate — or made up, such as it is, in the purported worth of one’s brand, a fungible thing. Billionaires don’t commonly keep half their net worth in a savings account at the bank. Trump would presumably have to sell properties to cover a bond issue — a lot of properties — in a risky commercial real estate environment where an industry-wide avalanche of debt defaults may be just around the corner.
[NOTE: In January, Moody’s Analytics announced that the national office vacancy rate rose in the fourth quarter to 19.6 percent, breaking a record set in 1986.]
In Trump’s case, ABC reports that “defendants have faced what have proven to be insurmountable difficulties in obtaining an appeal bond for the full $464 million,” according to an affirmation by Trump Organization general counsel Alan Garten. Garten called Trump’s trouble in securing the funds “insurmountable.”