Donald Trump can't find an insurer to cover the bond for his $464 million penalty fraud penalty while he appeals the ruling, and a legal analyst said he's got no one to blame but himself.
The former president's attorneys notified the court Monday that 30 underwriters had turned down his proposal to pledge a combination of cash and real estate as collateral, but most did not have the financial strength to handle a bond of that magnitude, and attorney Renato Mariotti told CNN that Trump had put himself into a precarious position.
"We'll just say that in other circumstances, other matters that I've handled that is what's happened," Mariotti said. "Essentially real estate developers refinance properties, sell properties do what they have to do to get cash. Now, candidly, I've never been in a case where a real estate developer needed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions. It's only been in the tens of millions, but nonetheless, for those real estate developers, it was a very significant ask to come up with that kind of money if your net worth is in the hundreds of millions."
Trump could have anticipated the ruling going against him and planned ahead by selling off properties himself to raise cash, but Mariotti said the ex-president hadn't done so.
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"But for Donald Trump nonetheless, he could have anticipated this and sold the property in the midst of the New York attorney general's proceeding," Mariottis said. "I really would say one of two things is true here. Either he doesn't have the wealth that he suggests he has or he didn't plan whatsoever, was so blind to what was occurring that he essentially left himself in a position where now he's going to incur significant costs and hassle and disruption to his business that was unnecessary."
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