Former President Trump’s legal team is pulling out all the stops in attacking woke New York Attorney General Letitia James’ "unconstitutional" attempt to seize Mar-a-Lago as her politically motivated lawsuit against the Republican continues.
On Thursday, Trump's lawyer Clifford S. Robert sent a letter to the Appellate Division of New York’s Supreme Court, arguing that James’ demand of forcing Trump to post a $464 million bond in the full amount in order to appeal is “unreasonable, unjust, and unconstitutional.”
In his letter, Robert argued that the former president would face “irreparable harm" if he were forced to pay the multi-hundred million bond or sell his iconic Mar-a-Lago property before his appeal is decided.
More from his letter:
It would be completely illogical — and the definition of an unconstitutional Excessive Fine and a Taking — to require Defendants to sell properties at all, and especially in a ‘fire sale,’ in order to be able to appeal the lawless Supreme Court judgment, as that would cause harm that cannot be repaired once the Defendants do win, as is overwhelmingly likely, on appeal.
[James’s and the New York Supreme Court] sought to impose a patently unreasonable, unjust, and unconstitutional (under both the Federal and New York State Constitutions) bond condition, which would cause irreparable harm and foreclose any review of the Supreme Court’s deeply flawed decision in this case.
In short, while attempting to cynically and wrongfully tar the Defendants’ witnesses as ‘unreliable,’ the Attorney General does not actually dispute the truth of a single one of their specific claims. This is unsurprising because these claims are undeniable to those with knowledge of real estate and sureties. Perhaps worst of all, the Attorney General argues that Defendants should be forced to dispose of iconic, multi-billion-dollar real-estate holdings in a ‘fire sale.’
Last month, James said that she was prepared to seize Trump’s assets if he can’t pay the bond. However, Trump’s attorneys argue that the former president should not be required to post a bond while he appeals the outcome of his recent civil business fraud trial.
Trump called the judgment requirement “crazy,” saying that if he “sold assets, and then won the appeal, the assets would be forever gone.”
Robert cited several editorials that cited James’ demands as political motives to keep Trump off of the 2024 ballot.
In addition, Judge Arthur Engoron issued an order that expands the monitor's oversight of Trump's assets, meaning that the company must notify the watchdog about any efforts it makes to receive the bonds. The appeals court has also put a temporary halt on the judgment orders that prohibit Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. from continuing to run the company.
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