Former President Donald Trump may let New York Attorney General Letitia James seize his iconic Trump Tower and other assets to satisfy the $454 million civil fraud judgment against him.
The New York Post, citing unnamed sources, reports Trump believes he will overturn the case on appeal and be able to take back those assets.
Judge Arthur Engoron has ordered Trump to pay up by March 25.
With most of his net worth tied up in real estate, Trump reportedly does not have enough cash in the bank to post the nearly half billion dollar bond.
Sources close to Trump say he has been working with banks to raise the money, considering filing Chapter 11, and, a third option, considering doing nothing, according to the Post.
Trump believes he will prevail in an appeal, even if he has to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, the report says.
“Even if there is a taking, it doesn’t mean he can’t take it back later,” a source close to Trump told the Post.
However, Steven Cheung, the communications director for Trump’s campaign, dispelled a CNN report earlier this week that Trump is in “panic mode.”
“These baseless innuendoes are pure bullshit and fake news,” Cheung said in a statement. “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 principles of our Republic, and fundamentally undermine the rule of law in New York,” Cheung’s statement continued. “President Trump will continue fighting and beating all of these Crooked Joe Biden-directed hoaxes and Will Make America Great Again.”
Trump’s attorneys are having trouble finding a surety company approved by the Treasury Department to underwrite the bond because the banks will not accept real estate as collateral, The Hill reports.
Trump’s reported strategy is to post the bond to pause enforcement of the ruling while he appeals the case.
While the friends cited by the Post say Trump unequivocally does not want to ask wealthy friends for help, other reports say he is looking for backers with deep pockets for help.
On Wednesday and again Thursday, the Trump campaign sent out a fundraising message to supporters with the subject line, “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower.”
Another reason why Trump’s team believes they will overturn the case is because of its far-reaching ramifications for New York as a place of business. The case “will have a chilling effect on people who do business in New York because it could happen to anyone,” one insider says.
“There will be severe consequences — not an insurrection,” the insider says. “People will stop doing business in New York. No one will take the risk, and lenders are now spooked. The real estate market is already a disaster, with office buildings worth a fraction of what they were once worth, and there are mestastasizing effects when a large part of the city’s budget is from real estate.”
Bess Freedman, CEO of luxury real estate firm Brown Harris Stevens, tells the Huffington Post that Trump has almost no chance of selling a property by Monday.
One property, however, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is the “best-case-scenario” for a quick sale, Freedman says.
“I think the valuation is something in the hundreds of millions, and I think there could be a buyer for something like that,” she says.
If Trump does not meet the Monday deadline, the New York AG’s Office has the right to confiscate and sell off Trump’s properties to recover the cash penalties owed, says Adam Leitman Bailey, a New York commercial real estate attorney.
“They are going after the money, and that’s all he has a right to get back — not the buildings — unless the judgment is reversed before they are sold.”
According to county clerk records revealed on Thursday, James recently registered judgments against Trump in Westchester County, where he owns property.
The March 6 judgments were against Trump, the Trump Organization, and two of his adult children.
Newsmax has reached out to Trump’s team for comment.
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