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Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, warned on Monday that the ex-president's current financial situation could put the United States in "jeopardy."
Lawyers for Trump filed a document in court on Monday saying that they are currently unable to come up with the $464 million bond in his civil fraud case that was brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
"The amount of the judgment, with interest, exceeds $464 million, and very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching that magnitude," Trump's legal team wrote in its filing. "Despite scouring the market, we have been unsuccessful in our effort to obtain a bond for the Judgment Amount for Defendants for the simple reason that obtaining an appeal bond for $464 million is a practical impossibility under the circumstances presented."
In response to the latest development, Cohen wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday: "A prediction I said immediately after the Engoron verdict was announced. Should a foreign source emerge as his savior, our entire country's national security will be in jeopardy."
Cohen, who served prison time after pleading guilty to eight criminal counts including campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud, stemming from his work with Trump, has become an outspoken critic of the former president.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's spokesman via email for comment.
In February, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled in James' favor in her lawsuit against Trump, his adult sons and The Trump Organization, that alleged that the former president inflated the value of his properties, as well as the value of his own net worth, to secure more favorable bank loans and taxation deals.
Trump, the presumed 2024 GOP presidential nominee, was later required to pay over $400 million in penalties, and he and his sons were barred from conducting business in New York for a period of two to three years.
The former president, who has maintained his innocence, vowed to appeal the ruling, with his lawyer, Alina Habba saying in a statement, "We trust that the Appellate Division will overturn this egregious fine and take the necessary steps to restore the public faith in New York's legal system."
Meanwhile, Trump also paid a $91.6 million bond earlier this month as part of an appeal process, following a civil defamation case brought by former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused the former president of sexual assault. Trump has also maintained his innocence in that case.
The bond consisted of the $83.3 million judgment, along with statutory interest added by the State of New York. The bond was secured by the Federal Insurance Company, a part of insurance company Chubb Corporation.
Chubb chairman and CEO Evan Greenberg has history with Trump, having been appointed in 2018 to his Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations during his presidency. The Washington Post recently reported it is "not clear from court records what collateral Trump presented to obtain the bond from Chubb."
While speaking about the former president on his Mel Culpa podcast on Friday, Cohen said, "I think we are going to see him lose everything, he's already lost his mind and most of his money. Millions and millions in legal fees alone. I mean his properties are all leveraged and just moments after the predator in chief put up the bond to appeal the E. Jean Carroll defamation judgment."
In an interview last Sunday on MSNBC's Inside with Jen Psaki, Andrew Weissmann, the former general counsel for the FBI who also served as lead prosecutor in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Trump's 2016 campaign, discussed the former president's civil judgements ahead of this year's presidential election.
"This is an example of running not just as an outsider, but as an outlaw...The concern in these civil cases with these civil judgements is who is the candidate beholden to. Is he somebody who is going to be making policy and being differential to people who have put up money?" he asked.
He later added: "There is a simple way of looking at this, is that he has $450 million reasons to be differential if somebody else is putting up the money or co-signing...That issue of who is actually behind this is something that people who are voting should know."
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About the writer
Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more