The appeal bond payment that former President Donald Trump posted may be headed for an implosion, according to legal analyst Glenn Kirschner on Saturday.
Trump posted a $175 million bond on April 1 in order to prevent the seizure of his assets by New York state while he attempts to appeal the civil fraud ruling against him. New York Judge Arthur Engoron previously found Trump, his adult sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and The Trump Organization liable for a scheme in which the value of Trump's net worth and assets were unlawfully inflated in order to obtain more favorable business deals. Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, has maintained his innocence in the matter.
Trump was hit with a penalty that came to around $454 million after interest, and would have had to pay a bond slightly higher than that amount to stave off the state from seizing assets, such as his many real estate holdings, to cover the penalty. An appeals court last week, however, ruled that he could instead pay a lower bond of $175 million.
The bond was then rejected by the court's filing system shortly after it was posted due to missing paperwork, including a "current financial statement." New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office led the fraud case against Trump, later raised questions about the "sufficiency" of the bond and noted that the surety backing it, Knight Specialty Insurance Company (KSIC), is not admitted in New York, meaning it's ineligible to obtain a certificate of qualification from the Department of Financial Services (DFS). KSIC has refiled its paperwork as a result in an effort to get the process moving again.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's office via email for comment on Sunday morning.
In a video shared to his YouTube page on Saturday, Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney and frequent critic of the former president, touched on this latest development in Trump's legal saga, suggesting that his bond payment might be "about to implode." He also discussed James' filing that requested more information about the entity that backed Trump's bond in order to determine the "sufficiency of the surety." Engoron set a hearing for the matter on April 22, which Kirschner suggested in his video could imperil Trump's bond by bringing increased scrutiny to its questionable background.
Kirschner broke down reporting on the nature of KSIC and its chairman Don Hankey, a billionaire noted for his practice of giving loans to those whom other financial institutions would not and for "running afoul of regulators," according to NBC News.
"With Judge Engoron setting a hearing on April 22 to pull back the curtain on this 'bond' that Don Hankey gave to Donald Trump, $175 million bond, I'm quite sure that Attorney General Tish James and Judge Engoron will get to the bottom of what this bond really involves," Kirschner said. "And they'll figure out whether this bond involves any financial, you know...'hankey-pankey."
Updated, 4/7/2024, 7:00 p.m. ET: Updated to clarify nature of Trump's appeal bond.
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Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more
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