Former President Donald Trump is looking to fight the $464 million he was ordered to pay last month, with his legal team saying that he is having “insurmountable difficulties” in obtaining a bond to satisfy the civil fraud judgment.
“Defendants have faced what have proven to be insurmountable difficulties in obtaining an appeal bond for the full $464 million,” according to an affirmation by Trump Organization general counsel Alan Garten.
On Monday, Trump’s legal team shared this in the new appellate court filing, arguing that the former president would need to use his real estate as collateral to obtain the bond.
Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay the nearly half a billion dollars in disgorgement and interest after holding him liable for doing a decade’s worth of business with financial statements that were fraudulently overvaluing his real estate holdings.
Along with the fine, Trump was also barred from leading any New York company for three years, while his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, were barred for two years and fined $4 million each.
In Monday’s filing, Garten maintained that Trump is “financially stable” and has “substantial assets” but that the magnitude of the judgment would require too much of him.
According to Garten’s affirmation, Trump has tried, but no surety bond provider has been willing to accept real estate as collateral.
“For Defendants, this presents a major obstacle,” Garten wrote.
Other defense lawyers for Trump called the judgment “unconstitutionally excessive,” asking the appellate court to allow Trump to secure a bond in a lesser amount.
Lawyers Alina Habba and Clifford Robert wrote on Monday that Trump would have to have a “fire sale” of his real estate holdings to produce the cash, which would “result in massive, irrecoverable losses -- textbook irreparable injury.”
The New York Attorney General’s Office has objected to Trump’s requests for a lesser bond, arguing in response that Trump and his co-defendants “will attempt to evade enforcement of the judgment or to make enforcement more difficult.”
The former president is maintaining that he didn’t do anything wrong and is planning on appealing the decision.