Trump Rejected by Dozens of Bond Underwriters
Donald Trump has been unable to secure the nearly $500 million he needs to delay the collection of a massive $355 million civil fraud judgment leveled against him and the Trump Organization in February.
In a New York court filing submitted Monday, Trump’s attorneys wrote: “Despite scouring the market, we have been unsuccessful in our effort to obtain a bond for the Judgment Amount for Defendants for the simple reason that obtaining an appeal bond for $464 million is a practical impossibility under the circumstances presented.”
The bond is a necessary stipulation for New York defendants to appeal court decisions and can be worth as much as 110 percent of the awarded damages. Earlier this month, the former president posted a $91.6 million bond in order to appeal the ruling against him in a civil defamation case brought against him by author E. Jean Carroll. The financing for the bond was provided by the insurance company Chubb. Notably Evan Greenberg, the CEO of the company, was a Trump appointee in his administration and served on the former president’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.
Trump was unable to secure a similar arrangement in his New York civil fraud case. According to Monday’s filing, 30 underwriters declined to back the bond.
Without the bond, the state can proceed with the collection of the damages leveled against Trump. New York Attorney General Letitia James previously told ABC News that the state would not hesitate to seize Trump’s properties as payment if necessary, and his own lawyers wrote in February that the former president may have to sell some of his real estate portfolio to cover the fines.
Trump, his flagship company, as well as several employees and family members, were declared liable for fraud in September after the state alleged they had ripped off investors and taxpayers by manipulating the values of Trump’s properties. Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president to pay $355 million in damages and barred him “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years.”
Trump’s efforts to appeal the two civil cases in New York are part of a larger legal campaign to stave off a torrent of litigation and criminal prosecution that could derail his efforts to reclaim the presidency. The former president has leveled Supreme Court challenges at prosecutors, turned in-court appearances into televised speeches, and attempted to slow-walk every legal proceeding he’s involved in. But as we learned Friday, while Trump has many resources at his disposal, his coffers are not bottomless pits.
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