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.
The billion number is because the suretors project he’ll lose on appeal and then they will need to collect on his assets which he will fight tooth and nail for again.
So by the time they finally get it they’d only net a tiny profit for the pain. Hardly worth it.
Either that or the price tag is the “We don’t want to do business with you but we’re also not going to say no” price.