Former President Donald Trump is in “panic mode” as the deadline approaches for him to secure a half-billion-dollar bond to appeal his civil fraud judgment, CNN reports.
Trump’s lawyers admitted in a filing on Monday that he was unable to secure the bond necessary to appeal the ruling despite approaching 30 underwriters.
“Privately, Trump had been counting on Chubb, which underwrote his $91.6 million bond to cover the E. Jean Carroll judgment, to come through, but the insurance giant informed his attorneys in the last several days that that option was off the table,” according to CNN.
Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said in the filing that Chubb was the only company willing to consider “underwriting an appeal bond secured by a blend of liquid assets and real property,” according to CNBC, while other companies “wanted only cash or other liquid assets.”
Chubb was “actively negotiating” with Trump but “within the past week” the company reversed course and “notified Defendants that it could not accept real property as collateral,” according to Garten.
“Though disappointing, this decision was not surprising given that Chubb was the only surety willing to even consider accepting real estate as collateral,” Garten said.
Trump’s team has also sought out wealthy backers to help the former president out of the jam and has considered what assets could be quickly sold in order to cover his massive bill, according to CNN.
Trump has become “increasingly concerned about the optics the March 25 deadline could present – especially the prospect that someone whose identity has long been tied to his wealth would confront financial crisis,” according to the report.
Trump on Truth Social Tuesday expressed concern that he “would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told CNN that their report was “pure bulls**t.”
“President Trump has filed a motion to stay the unjust, unconstitutional, un-American judgment from New York Judge Arthur Engoron in a political Witch Hunt brought by a corrupt Attorney General. A bond of this size would be an abuse of the law, contradict bedrock principals of our Republic, and fundamentally undermine the rule of law in New York,” he said in a statement.
Chubb faced scrutiny after underwriting Trump’s bond in the Carroll case. Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg, who was previously appointed by Trump to a trade policy advisory committee and a business group that focused on the economic fallout of the COVID pandemic, sought to reassure investors and customers about the bond, according to CNBC.
“As the surety, we don’t take sides, it would be wrong for us to do so and we are in no way supporting the defendant. When Chubb issues an appeal bond, it isn’t making judgments about the claims, even when the claims involve alleged reprehensible conduct,” he wrote in a letter on Wednesday, adding that Trump’s bond in the Carroll case was “fully collateralized.”
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