New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office first forced former President Donald Trump to pay a $454 million bond.
Then when an appeals court ruled that it was an outlandish sum, the bond was lowered to $175 million.
After scrambling to get the millions of money to pay the radical, politically-driven bond, James is asking the judge in Trump’s civil fraud case to reject it.
On Friday, state lawyers explained in a 26-page court filing that Trump and his co-defendants — the Trump Organization and its top executives, including his two sons— failed to show there is enough identifiable collateral to back the bond.
“Based on the foregoing, the People respectfully request that the Court deny Movants’ motion to justify the surety, declare the Bond to be without effect, and order that any replacement bond be posted within seven days, along with such other and further relief the Court deems necessary and appropriate,” James’ office wrote.
Letitia James tried to force Trump to pay a $454 million bond.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 19, 2024
An appeals court said that was LUDICROUS and lowered the amount to $175 million.
Trump posted the $175 million bond.
Now Letitia is asking the judge to REJECT it.
This woman’s vengeance to take down Trump and…
Earlier this month, James raised doubts about the “sufficiency” of the $175 million bond Trump put up, which the California-based Knight Specialty Insurance Company lent the former president.
Lawyers for James’ claimed that Knight is a “small insurer that is not authorized to write business in New York” and had “never before written a surety bond in New York,” until Trump asked for it.
The court filing argued that Trump chose a “small insurer that is not authorized to write business in New York and thus not regulated by the state's insurance department,” rather than a large-scale national insurance company licensed in New York.
“Based on KSIC’s policyholder surplus in its most recent annual financial statement of $138,441,671, the limitation of loss on any one risk that KSIC is permitted to write is $13.8 million,” the lawyers wrote. “The face amount of the bond exceeds this limitation by $161.2 million.”
James threatened to seize Trump’s assets including his Mar-a-Lago estate if he failed to secure the bond funds. At the time, Trump’s attorneys argued that the former president should not be required to post a bond while he appeals the outcome of his recent civil business fraud trial.