Trump posts $92M bond as he appeals defamation verdict
NEW YORK — Donald Trump has secured a $91.6 million bond sufficient to cover the money he owes to writer E. Jean Carroll in a defamation lawsuit while he appeals the jury’s verdict, the former president’s lawyer told a court on Friday.
Attorney Alina Habba filed papers with the New York judge to show that Trump had secured the bond from the Federal Insurance Co., a unit of the insurance giant Chubb. The bond would cover the $83.3 million judgement in the lawsuit, plus interest.
Habba simultaneously filed a notice showing Trump, the likely 2024 Republican presidential nominee, is appealing the verdict. The posting of the bond was a necessary step to delay payment of the award until the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can rule on Trump’s legal challenge.
The filings came a day after Judge Lewis A. Kaplan refused to delay a Monday deadline for posting a bond to ensure that Carroll, 80, can collect the judgement if it remains intact following appeals.
RNC votes in Trump’s handpicked chair
HOUSTON — The Republican National Committee voted Friday to install Donald Trump’s handpicked leadership team, completing his takeover of the national party as the former president closes in on a third straight presidential nomination.
Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican who has echoed Trump’s false theories of voter fraud, was elected the party’s new national chairman in a vote Friday morning in Houston. Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, was voted in as co-chair.
Trump’s team is promising not to use the RNC to pay his mounting personal legal bills. But Trump and his lieutenants will have firm control of the party’s political and fundraising machinery with limited, if any, internal pushback.
U.S. employers add 275K jobs
WASHINGTON — America’s employers delivered another healthy month of hiring in February, adding a surprising 275,000 jobs and again showcasing the U.S. economy’s resilience in the face of high interest rates.
Last month’s job growth marked an increase from a gain of 229,000 jobs in January. The unemployment rate ticked up two-tenths of a point in February to 3.9%. Though that was the highest rate in two years, it is still low by historic standards. And it marked the 25th straight month in which joblessness has remained below 4% — the longest such streak since the 1960s.