Trump has until Monday to come up with the money.

New York Attorney General Letitia James has urged an appeals court to ignore Donald Trump’s latest effort to worm his way out of paying the $464 million disgorgement from his bank fraud trial.

On Wednesday, an attorney for James told the court that Trump’s claims could not be trusted since they were based on sworn statements by Alan Garten, general counsel at the Trump Organization, and Gary Giulietti, one of Trump’s close friends. There’s a precedent to disqualify them—during the trial, Judge Arthur Engoron decided that Giulietti could not be considered a credible witness and argued that Garten had “professional interests in this litigation.”

Garten, however, snapped back at that. “The court found no such thing. The AG statement is reckless and completely untrue,” Garten said in response to the filing, according to The Washington Post.

So far, Trump has tried and failed to pause the rapidly growing interest on the judgment, counteroffering the court a $100 million bond in lieu of the full amount. He has also approached several brokers and 30 suretors for help securing a bond, though it didn’t seem to work out for him, according to a filing by Trump’s attorneys, who admitted that suretors refused to accept Trump’s real estate as collateral. Instead, they would only accept cash to the tune of $1 billion, which Trump said he and his businesses just don’t have.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    8 months ago

    Instead, they would only accept cash to the tune of $1 billion, …

    “I need a $500M loan, what do you want for collateral?”

    “One billion dollars.”

    This is absolutely hilarious. Even Trump’s cash is only worth 50% of its face value.

    • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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      8 months ago

      It’s more you need to prove you have $1 billion for us to put up this $500 million because we don’t trust you to not spend a $500 million collateral on hamberders, hush money and legal fees.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        8 months ago

        … suretors refused to accept Trump’s real estate as collateral. Instead, they would only accept cash to the tune of $1 billion, which Trump said he and his businesses just don’t have.

        If they want cash as collateral, that cash would go into an escrow. Why would you tie up $1B in escrow in order to get $500M? You wouldn’t; you would just use the cash you had.

        It’s like going to a pawn shop and asking how much they’ll give you for a $20 bill, and they say $10.

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I would imagine that the collateral could be cash or liquid assets like stocks or bonds. That would justify the additional demand of $1 billion, because stock values fluctuate. The benefit to Trump is that he wouldn’t have to sell the assets, incurring a taxable event, and potentially losing out on future capital gains (or capital losses to be used as tax offsets).

          Putting the money in escrow for the appeal would need to be cash.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          So . . . he’s not a billionaire?

          Like we all knew? for years? And laughed at the fucking idiots who thought he was?

          For srs? Wow. Just - mind blown.

        • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.com
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          8 months ago

          With escrow its completely pointless as you say to not pay it yourself. So I have to assume it’s the terms for when it’s not to be put in escrow.

    • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Kinda makes sense though. If he had physical property worth $500M, they could put a lien on it preventing him from selling it. If he had $500M cash, and used that as collateral, he could just spend it on his other legal issues and the banks would lose out.

      He needs $1 Billion so he has some headroom for his other legal troubles to siphon some of it off and still have enough to pay back the bond.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I imagine during the Trump fire sale, buying a Trump property would require to invest heavily in clean up and bringing it to code. So yeah, $1 Donald Dollar is like half.