NY A.G. Says Trump Is Lying to Avoid Paying $464 Million Judgment
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.
In a nearly 5,000-page document filed on Monday, Trump’s attorneys argued that the fine was “grossly disproportional” to Trump’s offenses, which included defrauding banks, insurance companies, and investors by falsely inflating his wealth and the value of his properties.
“The amount of the judgment, with interest, exceeds $464 million, and very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching that magnitude,” wrote attorneys Alina Habba, Clifford Robert, Christopher Kise, and John Sauer.
Trump issued his own venom Monday night in a string of posts that his former fixer, Michael Cohen, interpreted as fury directed at a “situation that is completely out of his control.”
“A bond of the size set by the Democrat Club-controlled Judge, in Corrupt, Racist Letitia James’ unlawful Witch Hunt, is unConstitutional, un-American, unprecedented, and practically impossible for ANY Company, including one as successful as mine. The Bonding Companies have never heard of such a bond, of this size, before, nor do they have the ability to post such a bond, even if they wanted to,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial.
Regardless of his frustration, he’s quickly running out of time. The former president has until Monday to come up with nearly half a billion dollars—and if he doesn’t, James can begin taking steps to seize his assets to cover the debt, including 40 Wall Street and Trump Tower.*
* This article originally mischaracterized the consequences of the Monday deadline.
