Donald Trump was relying on the Chubb Corporation underwriting the $464 million bond he needs to pay by Monday — and the company's refusal to do so has left him panicking, according to a report.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins said Tuesday that the former president was "counting on the insurance company" to bail him out with the damages he owes after his civil fraud trial, just as it did when it supplied assurances for the $91 million bond after he was found liable for defaming New York columnist E. Jean Carroll.
Collins said she learned from sources close to Trump that, as Monday's deadline approaches, "panic mode is setting in."
Chubb had been “actively negotiating” with Trump and his co-defendants, according to a statement released by Trump Organization's lawyer Alan Garten and reported by CNBC. Then, “within the past week," Chubb changed its direction and “notified defendants that it could not accept real property as collateral.”
“Though disappointing, this decision was not surprising given that Chubb was the only surety willing to even consider accepting real estate as collateral,” Garten added.
Chubb's agreement to underwrite Trump's Carroll defamation bond was followed by criticism aimed at its CEO, Evan Greenberg, who had been appointed by Trump to a trade policy advisory committee and a business group to stymie the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday last week, Greenberg sent a letter to investors, customers and brokers who had expressed concerns about that bond.
“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,” Greenberg wrote. “When Chubb issues an appeal bond, it isn’t making judgments about the claims, even when the claims involve alleged reprehensible conduct.”
He added that Trump’s bond in the defamation case was “fully collateralized.”
Chubb was one of 30 companies — including billionaire Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway — that Trump had asked to put down the fraud trial bond amount, but they reportedly decided against it because they wanted hard cash or liquid assets as collateral.
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Trump is now trying to appeal to a panel of New York judges to stay the judgment or drastically reduce the amount that Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron set for committing longstanding and widespread fraud by hyping up the value of his assets to secure more favorable loans and deals.
Collins learned that Trump is also worried about how it will look to the public if he fails to pay up what he owes.
"I'm told that Trump himself has become increasingly concerned about the optics that that March 25 deadline could bring given he is someone who has long tied his identity to his wealth, and he could find himself confronting a real financial crisis in just a matter of days," she said.
