A New York appellate court on Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s attempt to pause the judgment in his civil fraud case. According to ABC News, that requires the former president to post a bond for hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming weeks.
In their court filing early Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers argued that the penalties are “unprecedented and punitive.”
“The exorbitant and punitive amount of the Judgment coupled with an unlawful and unconstitutional blanket prohibition on lending transactions would make it impossible to secure and post a complete bond,” defense lawyers wrote in the filing. “Appellants nonetheless plan to secure and post a bond in the amount of $100 million.” In the filing, Trump’s lawyers said that posting a bond to cover the entire judgment would be impossible. “Those assets are not going anywhere, nor could they given the oversight of the Monitor and the practical realities of the existence of the very public Judgment,” the filing said.
Dennis Fan of the AG’s office implied in the filing that Trump’s lawyers admitted the former president lacks the money to cover the judgment. “There is no merit to defendants’ contention that a full bond or deposit is unnecessary because they are willing to post a partial undertaking of less than a quarter of the judgment amount,” Fan wrote. “Defendants all but concede that Mr. Trump has insufficient liquid assets to satisfy the judgment; defendants would need ‘to raise capital’ to do so.”