A New York court of appeals has significantly reduced the bail that former President Donald Trump must post on Monday in order to cover the cost of his New York civil fraud trial, according to Zero Hedge.
Just hours before New York Attorney General Letitia James promised to begin seizing assets of the Trump empire in order to pay the original $454 million judgment, a five-person panel of appellate judges reduced the figure to $175 million. The change comes after President Trump lamented he would need to conduct a “fire sale” of various properties in order to come up with a cash payment.
Many parts of the original ruling were left intact, including orders that Donald Trump, Jr. and various family associates be prevented from holding corporate officer positions in New York for the next several years. If the decision had not come down, President Trump ran the very real risk of seeing his personal bank account frozen and entire buildings be vacated and put under control of the state of New York.
President Trump now has 10 days to come up with the new amount.
WATCH:
On Friday the former president and Republican frontrunner obtained good news after a vote by the parent company of Truth Social to merge with a shell corporation in advance of going public, a deal that could see Trump’s net worth swell by as much as $4 billion. Observers speculated that Trump could seek to sell some shares of the company for immediate profit, though that would require the Securities and Exchange Commission to waive a lockout period preventing owners of new public companies from disgorging themselves in the first six months after an initial public offering.
President Trump has maintained that his civil real estate trial was a “sham” perpetrated by allies of President Joe Biden like AG James and an unfair judge, Arthur Engoron, who repeatedly reprimanded him during appearances in court. The decision is a second setback following an $84 million judgment in the E. Jean Carroll civil trial, and President Trump continues to face four ongoing criminal trials, two of which have been brought by the Biden Justice Department. The flurry of legal hearings has seen President Trump’s campaign intertwined with his courtroom appearances, brandishing the opportunities as examples of President Biden and his allies weaponizing the justice system against his leading rival for the White House in November.
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