Lawyers for former President Donald Trump told an appellate court in New York on Monday that their client was not able to secure a $454 million bond after being rejected by 30 insurance companies. Trump’s deadline to post bond is Monday, March 25.
Today, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that he currently has “almost” $500 million in cash, “a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president.” (The post was written in his signature style of all caps.)
Trump now claims that he has almost $500 million in cash, but his lawyers recently told the appellate court that he has no means to post a $454 million bond.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) March 22, 2024
One of them is lying, and you can expect the court to ask Trump’s lawyers about this. pic.twitter.com/z0Yj6NUc7B
While again claiming that he “has done nothing wrong,” Trump said that the judge who ordered him to pay the fine “wanted to take it away from me” so Trump couldn’t use the money for his campaign.
[Note: In February, Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and ordered him to pay a penalty of nearly $355 million plus interest and barred him from serving in top executive roles in any New York company, including his own, for three years.]
Former Federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti responded to Trump’s new liquidity claim by writing on X: “Trump now claims that he has almost $500 million in cash, but his lawyers recently told the appellate court that he has no means to post a $454 million bond. One of them is lying, and you can expect the court to ask Trump’s lawyers about this.”
It’s bizarre to see Trump allies, including lawyers like Turley, decry the ordinary operation of our judicial system as “mob justice.” Bonds like this are commonplace.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) March 19, 2024
Trump either didn’t plan for this very foreseeable circumstance, or he lacks the wealth he claims he has. https://t.co/KIckrvX6Kk
Note: When Trump’s lawyers announced he couldn’t get a bond, Mariotti noted: “It’s bizarre to see Trump allies, including lawyers like Turley, decry the ordinary operation of our judicial system as ‘mob justice.’ Bonds like this are commonplace. Trump either didn’t plan for this very foreseeable circumstance, or he lacks the wealth he claims he has.”
Mariotti also points out — suggesting that Trump’s finances may align more with his recent claim than with the dire position his lawyers put forth — that “Trump is not being forced to post a bond. He can appeal without one. There is no evidence he will go bankrupt due to posting bond.”