Less than a month after New York Attorney General Letitia James said she would be willing to seize former Republican President Donald Trump’s assets if he is unable to pay the $464 million required by last month’s judgment in his civil fraud case, Trump’s lawyers disclosed in court filings Monday that he had failed to secure a bond for the amount.
In the nearly 5,000-page filing, lawyers for Trump said it has proven a “practical impossibility” for Trump to secure a bond from any financial institutions in the state, as “about 30 surety companies” have refused to accept assets including real estate as collateral and have demanded cash and other liquid assets instead.
To get the institutions to agree to cover that $464 million judgment if Trump loses his appeal and fails to pay the state, he would have to pledge more than $550 million as collateral—“a sum he simply does not have,” reportedThe New York Times, despite his frequent boasting of his wealth and business prowess.
This isn’t bail with a small risk of loss paid for by the guaranteed loss of 10% to the bondsman. This is 99% Chance of loss on a settled case with the reasonable expectation that Trump would fight collection tooth and nail, try to pay less than face via bankruptcy etc. It’s a risk of hundreds of millions of dollars that would take YEARS to settle. Years in which lenders could be earning returns if that money was invested elsewhere. 30 institutions said no.
He needs to secure the loan with cash or cash equivalents for the whole shebang. Nobody wants properties which he has already borrowed against even if the net of value and loan are positive to the tune of hundreds of millions its risky and challenging to sell. He should have started mortgaging when the judge told him he’d lost and they were only determining the scope of the loss so he could have obtained favorable terms.