Donald Trump: Former President claims he has the $454m to pay his legal fine

Donald Trump’s legal issues since leaving the Oval Office seem to be never ending. Indeed, while we are currently focusing on the New York insurance and bank fraud trial, Donald Trump is also expected to face a judge concerning election interference later in 2024.

However, going back to the fraud trial, this Monday 25 March is a very important date for the former President: he is expected to either find the money to pay his fine or post a bond. This fine came after a trial that lasted for months in which the former president was found guilty of inflating his wealth and lying to banks and insurers in order to secure more favorable loans. As The Guardian reports, the amount Trump must pay is $454m. While at first, his lawyers argued that he couldn’t come up with the money, the former President bragged about having the sum on Friday 22 March.

As a reminder, if Trump doesn’t find the money or post a bond within the deadline, the District Attorney could start seizing his assets, including property, by Tuesday morning.

Donald Trump brags about having the money

On Monday 25 March, as the clock runs out on his deadline, Donald Trump continues his crusade against Judge Engoron and District Attorney James. In a post on Truth Social, he clearly claims to have the money.

On Monday he wrote:

These Radical Left Lunatics and Communists ask me to pay a ridiculous and completely unheard of fine of over $450,000,000 only because they saw a similar amount in my bank account.

He continues his post, furthering his claims that both Engoron and James are doing this to prevent him from running for a second term as President.

I had intended to use much of that hard earned money on running for President. They don’t want me to do that — ELECTION INTERFERENCE!

However, as things currently stand, Trump is most like to become the Republican candidate to run against Joe Biden.

Trump contradicts his own lawyers

Though it is habitual for Trump to brag about his wealth and vehemently criticise his opponents, his use of social media in the last few days could turn out to be a mistake.

Indeed, when in February 2024, Judge Engoron fined Donald Trump this wild amount of money, his lawyers argued that Trump couldn’t come up with it. In the week of 18 March, his lawyers point blank said that it was a ‘practical impossibility’ to come up with the money to pay the fine.

Not only that, Trump’s lawyers shared their struggle when it came to finding companies to secure the bond. Independent reports that Trump’s team of lawyers approached ‘about 30 surety companies through four separate brokers’ but with no success.

Trump’s lawyers wrote:

Critical among these challenges is not just the inability and reluctance of the vast majority of sureties to underwrite a bond for this unprecedented sum, but, even more significantly, the unwillingness of every surety bond provider approached by defendants to accept real estate as collateral

An ‘unprecedented sum’

Trump’s lawyers are not the only ones to complain and call out the sum of money fined by Judge Engoron. Eric Trump has also been joining the party.

On 24 March 2024, The Guardian reported that Trump’s son ‘has come out railing’ against the amount of the fine. Talking to Fox News Eric Trump stated that bonds of this size ‘don’t exist in this country’. He explained that when looking for bond issuers, companies ‘were laughing’ when they heard the amount.

He said:

A $10m bond is a large bond. A $15m bond is an enormous bond. A half-a-billion dollar bond?

Continuing to defend his father against the choice made by Judge Engoron, Eric Trump alleged that the amount was made to ‘put my father out of business’. He continued alleging and said that this situation also showed the intention of the legal team to ‘take all his resources’ so that Donald Trump can’t put them into running for President.

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Sources:

Independent: Donald Trump lashes out as clock runs down on his $464m bond payment

Independent: Trump says it’s impossible to post appeal bond for his $464m fraud judgment

The Guardian: ‘No one’s ever seen a bond this size’: Eric Trump criticises $454m judgment against his father

Donald Trump on Truth Social