Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the $454 million bond required to appeal the civil fraud judgment against him could force a fire sale of his real estate.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’ prosecution of Trump essentially tries to bankrupt the president. Trump must post a liquid (cash, securities) bond covering the full amount of the judgment to pause enforcement of the judgment, but 30 surety companies told Trump they would not accept real estate assets as collateral, Trump’s lawyers said Monday. The enforcement will begin on March 25.
If Trump can not post the $454 million bond, James could seek to freeze some of his bank accounts and properties.
Trump might have to sell his real estate at a “Fire Sale prices” to obtain the cash to appeal the ruling, he said Tuesday on Truth Social:
Judge Engoron actually wants me to put up Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for the Right to Appeal his ridiculous decision. In other words, he is trying to take my Appellate Rights away from me when I have already won at the Appellate Division, but he refuses to accept their already made decision.
“Nobody has ever heard of anything like this before. I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone,” Trump added. “Does that make sense? WITCH HUNT. ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”
Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley believes the financial predicament is a form of “mob justice” that could find its way to the Supreme Court:
His position is in order to get any other judge to look at what I’ve done to you, you’ve got to come up with basically a half a billion dollars just to appeal. It’s like a judge saying, “I’m going to take your house away, but you can appeal my decision. You just have to sell your house in order to do it.” …[M]any people look at this as a type of almost mob justice.
And this could end up going beyond the New York system. They [Trump’s team] could appeal this all the way to the Supreme Court. On occasion, the Supreme Court has intervened in state actions, for example, on punitive damages, and so that points damages can become so high they deny someone due process of law. This is falling into that extreme category, in my view. I find it appalling.
Turley concluded, “It shocks the conscience that you have to pony up this type of money just to get someone to look at what you believe, and I believe, is an excessive ruling by this judge.”
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
