Trump undercuts his lawyers with claim he has $500M cash
‘It definitely hurts him to say ‘I’ve got cash. I just don’t want to put it up.’ ’
Former President Donald Trump claimed Friday he had “almost $500 million” in cash, undercutting his lawyers’ previous statements that he would not be able to pay a bond of more than $450 million to secure a massive judgment in his New York civil fraud case.
“I currently have almost five hundred million dollars in cash, a substantial amount of which I intended to use in my campaign for president,” Trump said Friday morning in a TruthSocial post in all caps. He then claimed New York Supreme Court Justice
Arthur Engoron was aware of his cash on hand, and set the bond in that range on purpose.
Trump’s suggestion sharply contrasts with what his lawyers told a New York appellate court this week — that it would be “a practical impossibility” for Trump to post a bond covering the full amount. His lawyers cited rejections from 30 bond underwriters in their request for a stay of enforcement on the judgment.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who brought the lawsuit against Trump, can begin enforcing the judgment March 25, barring financial or court developments. That could entail seizing his bank accounts, real estate and other assets. Financial experts have said filing for bankruptcy could alleviate Trump’s financial jam, but he is not considering that approach, The Washington Post reported this week.
Engoron ordered Trump to pay the penalty Feb. 23, after he ruled the former president and his company used false financial statements to deceive banks and insurance companies. The ruling in the case came to $363,894,816, with the inclusion of $9,026,048 in penalties against Trump’s two adult sons and another company executive. Adding prejudgment interest brought the total for all defendants to more than $464 million, and post-judgment interest has accrued at more than $100,000 a day.
In a text message, Trump lawyer Christopher Kise suggested Trump was talking about his wealth from his businesses.
“What he’s talking about is the money (reported on his campaign disclosure forms) that he’s built up through years of owning and managing successful businesses around the world,” Kise said. “That is the very cash that Letitia James and the Democrats are targeting.”
Yet some legal experts suggested Trump’s remarks could hurt his lawyers’ arguments.
Gregory Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University, said the post undermines his credibility and the credibility of his witnesses who testified he doesn’t have the money.
“It definitely hurts him to say ‘I’ve got the cash. I just don’t want to put it up,’ ” Germain said. “It’s just very difficult to understand why he would do something like that.”
Trump’s claim also comes as the former president faces a significant cash disadvantage in his presidential campaign compared to President Joe Biden. Biden’s campaign reported Wednesday $71 million cash on hand for his principal campaign committee, compared to Trump’s $33.5 million, at the end of February. Save America PAC, the political action committee the Trump campaign has been using to pay the legal bills for the former president and many of his associates, spent more than it raised in February.
According to filings, Save America PAC reported $4 million in cash on hand at the end of February, and spent about $7 million over the same period, including $5.6 million to lawyers. Trump has not contributed any of his own money to his campaign.
Adam Levitin, a professor at Georgetown Law who specializes in bankruptcy, said Trump “might have cash on hand, but if he has to commit it to posting the appellate bond, it won’t be available for use in his businesses, which require a certain amount of cash for their normal operations.” Levitin said the real question is whether he’ll post a bond in the end.