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Trump can’t make his $464 million bond. What now?
Insights from The New York Times, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal
The News
Former President Donald Trump can’t find an insurance company to underwrite a bond to cover the $464 million judgment in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against him, his lawyers told an appeals court Monday.
Trump’s attorneys said he has approached 30 underwriters to back the bond, which he must pay by March 25. They have asked the court to delay posting the bond until his appeal of the case is over. It’s unclear when the appellate court will rule on the request.
“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 wrote in court filings.
SIGNALS
A bond that big is a ‘practical impossibility’
An insurance broker who testified for Trump during the trial signed an affidavit saying that securing a bond of that amount “is a practical impossibility.” Several of the United States’ largest underwriters have policies that bar them from securing bonds larger than $100 million, he said.
“I have never heard of nor seen an appeal bond of this size for a private company or individual,” said Gary Giulietti, the broker, who added that obtaining such a bond was “just not possible under these circumstances.” On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote that the size of the bond he requires is “unConstitutional, un-American, unprecedented, and practically impossible for ANY Company, including one as successful as mine.”
The problem: Underwriters can’t accept real estate as collateral
Trump’s lawyers said that potential underwriters need cash to back the bond — not properties — because real estate is risky collateral. While the value of the presidential candidate’s properties significantly exceed the judgment, CNN reported his attorneys as saying, no underwriters will accept real estate in lieu of cash.
That’s because of regulations on the insurance market. “Regulators don’t allow insurance companies to charge high premiums for taking on that kind of risk,” New York Times opinion writer Peter Coy explained, “they want insurers to charge low premiums for low risk.”
New York’s attorney general could seize Trump’s assets — but it could take time
If he can’t secure the bond by the deadline, Trump “faces the possibility of financial disaster and humiliation,” The Times reported. New York Attorney General Letitia James — who brought the fraud case against him — could seize Trump’s properties or freeze his bank accounts if he fails to come up with the money. But, lawyers told The Wall Street Journal, Trump wouldn’t lose his assets immediately. “The collection process can be painfully slow,” one attorney said.
Trump has another problem: Interest on his bond is going up every day. At this point, the former president would have to post about $1 billion in cash and liquid securities to get the bond he needs, Coy wrote in The New York Times, which is more than double the judgment amount.
