In a court filing on Monday, Donald Trump's lawyers sprung the news we've all suspected: Trump doesn't have the money to pay the $454 million civil fraud judgment levied against him for lying to banks and insurers about his supposed wealth for decades. Trump has appealed that ruling, or is trying to, but there's a catch: In order to appeal the verdict, he has to post a bond fully covering the judgment against him—and the coup-attempting "billionaire" doesn't have it.
Here’s CNBC:
″Defendants’ ongoing diligent efforts have proven that a bond in the judgment’s full amount is ‘a practical impossibility,’” the lawyers wrote, quoting an affidavit in the filing with the Appellate Division of Manhattan Supreme Court.
Just Security's Adam Klasfeld gives more details from Trump's filing, including the assertion that "countless hours negotiating with one of the largest insurance companies in the world" have proven that coming up with an appeal bond for the full amount "is not possible under the circumstances presented."
Most surety companies don't want to—or legally can’t—issue a bond approaching half a billion dollars, and the ones that might be willing to do so won’t accept assets like real estate as collateral, according to his lawyers. So Trump seems to be out of luck. He's again pressing the courts to allow the appeal to move forward without posting bond, or by posting a smaller amount. So far, he's had no luck.
While Trump's team’s admission that it is "not possible" for him to come up with the money is surely humiliating for the alleged billionaire, the news that he hasn't been able to convince the Chubb insurance company or anyone else to cover the bond might be more delicious. Chubb is the company that was willing to post the $91.6 million bond necessary to appeal the judgment against him regarding writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation suit; it appears even that well has run dry.
There was also speculation that fellow xenophobic billionaire Elon Musk might chip in support Trump after Musk visited Mar-a-Lago earlier this month. However, Musk himself publicly shot down the idea that he'd be donating to either the Trump or Biden campaigns—but you can take that promise about as seriously as you can take one from anyone else in Trump's orbit.
What's clear, though, is that no one appears willing to risk losing a half billion dollars for the sake of propping up Donald Trump. It's not just that Trump's countless lies about his supposed assets make it risky to do business with him; Trump's currently running for president again, and this time around he and his subordinates are making it clear that they intend a far more radical, fascist, and authoritarian-minded Trump administration this time around.
If Trump does retake the presidency, what are the odds that both his administration and a compliant Republican Congress will simply void all his debts and tell his creditors to pound sand? Not small. And certainly not small enough that anyone is willing to take the risk.
Wow, those are tough breaks, Donald. What a shame it is that a lifetime of crookedness, both petty and not, is coming back to bite you. Who would ever have expected that actions have consequences, and so on and so forth?
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