New York Attorney General Letitia James has "reasonable questions" about Donald Trump's $175 million bond in his civil fraud case, according to legal analyst Lisa Rubin on Sunday.
In February, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled in favor of James' lawsuit against Trump, his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and The Trump Organization over allegations that the former president inflated the value of his properties and his own net worth by billions of dollars on financial statements provided to banks and insurers to make deals and secure loans. Engoron said the former president must pay $454 million, which includes $355 million in penalties plus nearly $100 million in interest.
Trump, the presumptive Republican 2024 presidential nominee, maintains his innocence and is fighting the ruling through appeal, branding the overall case and trial against him as a politically motivated witch hunt.
On Monday, Knight Specialty Insurance Company (KSIC) posted bond so none of Trump's assets or bank accounts could be seized. KSIC is owned by the privately held Hankey Group. Don Hankey, chair of the company, heads both organizations.
However, documents as part of the $175 million bond were rejected by the court for not including a current financial statement. James later raised questions about the "sufficiency" of the bond.
A source within James' office previously told Newsweek that the court filing was due to Trump choosing to use an insurance company that is not admitted in New York and, therefore, ineligible to obtain a certificate of qualification from the Department of Financial Services (DFS).
The attorney general's office has filed a notice of exception to the surety that requires either Trump and/or his legal team or the surety to demonstrate by motion that the surety is financially capable of performing under the bond.
KSIC has refiled its paperwork as a result in an effort to get the process moving again.
On Sunday's MSNBC's The Weekend, Rubin, a legal analyst for the network, discussed Trump's bond as she noted that Hankey had been given conflicting answers about collateral his company accepted when putting up the bond for Trump.
"Don Hankey has given a number of interviews, he's been surprisingly forthcoming with a number of outlets including our own, but his precise statements have differed a little. But he told one outlet it was all in cash, he told another it was cash and a little bit of investment-grade bonds but he couldn't quite remember," Rubin said.
She added: "If somebody pledged collateral to me and I wasn't usually in the surety bond business, I would sure as heck remember what the collateral looked like if I was going to loan them or essentially put up for them $175 million. James has reasonable questions to ask," Rubin added.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump's spokesperson, Hankey and James' office via email for comment.
James' office pressed Trump and KSIC in a court filing last week, asking that Trump or the bond underwriter "justify" the bond, which could mean disclosing additional information about collateral the former president put forward in exchange for KSIC backing the amount.
However, Hankey said he was shocked that James had questioned the bond, telling Reuters that he was "surprised they're coming down harder on our bond or looking for reasons to cause issues with our instrument."
Amid the questions of collateral, however, according to Forbes who also spoke to Hankey, Trump's collateral to secure the loans was a combination of cash and investment-grade bonds.
"This is what we do at Knight insurance. I'd never met Donald Trump. I'd never talked to him on the phone. I heard that he needed a loan or a bond, and this is what we do. So, we reached out, and he responded," Hankey told Forbes.
However, this conflicts with what Hankey told ABC News when he told the outet, "It was a relatively low number, and Donald Trump put up all the collateral in cash."
Meanwhile, a court hearing was scheduled for April 22 by Engoron to discuss details of the bond.
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Natalie Venegas is a Weekend Reporter at Newsweek based in New York. Her focus is reporting on education, social justice ... Read more
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