Trump Wins One, Loses One in Court

Former President Donald Trump will have more time to pay less money in the civil fraud judgment against him.

A New York appellate court ruled Monday that Trump could have 10 days to pay a $175 million bond – less than half the approximately $464 million he was due to pay in financial penalties and interest by the same day the ruling came down.

But even as the former president averted a potentially ruinous financial judgment, he lost a bid in another courtroom to further delay a case against him involving alleged hush-money payments to a porn actress. That case will start April 15, forcing the presumptive GOP presidential nominee to fight a criminal case while he is running for president.

Trump, complaining that he did nothing wrong – and claiming that he had $500 million in cash while his lawyers said he couldn’t get someone to back the bond for him – faced a deadline Monday that could have resulted in the New York attorney general beginning the process of seizing his assets.

The Trump team had asked for the court to reverse a prior ruling ordering him to post a bond for the full judgment against him – plus interest compounding daily – while he appeals the outcome of the financial fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James. While Trump has repeatedly bragged about his wealth, his lawyers said he could not convince a bank or bond company to help with an amount that totaled roughly half a billion dollars, with underwriters not accepting real estate as collateral.

In what amounts to a significant victory for the former president, a panel of five appellate court judges gave Trump 10 days to come up with $175 million – an amount that is certainly easier, if not certain, for Trump to raise.

Trump, who appeared in a New York courtroom Monday on the separate hush-money case, said in a statement that he would “abide by the decision” and post a bond, securities or cash for the $175 million.

James’ office brushed off the ruling, saying Trump’s day of judgment was coming.

“Donald Trump is still facing accountability for his staggering fraud. The court has already found that he engaged in years of fraud to falsely inflate his net worth and unjustly enrich himself, his family, and his organization. The $464 million judgment — plus interest — against Donald Trump and the other defendants still stands,” the attorney general’s office said in a statement.

The hush-money case dates back to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The former president is accused of logging $130,000 in his company books as “legal fees,” while that amount was allegedly paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels to cover up her claim of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump. Trump wanted to keep the voting public from knowing about the relationship, prosecutors say.

The Trump team sought to further delay the trial – which at one time had been scheduled to start Monday – arguing they needed time to plow through documents they recently got from federal prosecutors. The former president has pursued such a strategy in other cases he’s facing as well, looking to push litigation past Election Day in November.

But the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, found no harm in the late disclosure, and ordered jury selection to begin as scheduled. “See you all on the 15th,” Merchan said as he closed the hearing.

Trump, speaking to reporters after the ruling, called it “election interference,” saying, without evidence, that the case was driven by President Joe Biden and his “thugs.”

The dual New York rulings came after a tense weekend for Trump, who was under pressure to come up with the cash in the fraud case or face the possibility of having bank accounts and property seized – potentially financially devastating for a man who cast himself as a business genius when he ran for president in 2016.

The damage to Trump could have been double: Not only could he have lost some of his prized real estate, but properties may have been sold at what Trump has called “fire sale” prices because of his vulnerable position.

Eric Trump, the former president’s son, said on Sunday that no one would give his father such a massive bond.

“Every single person when I came to them saying, ‘Hey, can I get a half-billion- dollar bond?’ Maria, they were laughing. They were laughing,” he told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo.

That backed up what Trump’s lawyers had argued to the appeals panel – that they went to some 30 bond underwriters and were rejected. On Friday, Trump claimed in a social media post that he actually had close to $500 million in cash, most of which he’d intended to use for his presidential campaign. He accused prosecutors and the judge of trying to deprive him of the money he needed to run his campaign, which already is lagging well behind Biden’s in fundraising.