Trump claims he has enough money to post a $175M bond in a civil fraud case: ‘I have a lot of cash’

Donald Trump said he has enough cash to post a $175 million bond in a civil fraud case after an appeals court drastically reduced the amount from $454 million earlier Monday.

“I have a lot of cash,” the former president said during a press conference at his 40 Wall St. building Monday afternoon. “You know I do because you have looked at my statements.”

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said that he actually has $500 million in cash but he didn’t think he should be forced to fork over nearly the full amount in the New York fraud case when he might want to use some to help pay for the campaign.

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“I have much more than that in cash but I would also like to use some of my cash to get elected,” he told reporters. “But they don’t want me to use my cash to get elected. They don’t want me taking cash out to use it for the campaign.”

Trump claimed he would pay the reduced figure that he now must put up within 10 days, according to a New York appeals court ruling.

“We’ll put up cash or bond very quickly, securities, cash, or bond, whatever it is,” Trump said. “We’ll put it up very quickly and we’ll win the case.”

The real estate tycoon called the press briefing  following the favorable ruling — and after he was forced to show up in a Lower Manhattan courtroom earlier where a judge set the trial date in the criminal “hush money” case against Trump for April 15.

Trump blasted Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan — who already once delayed the trial that had been set to start Monday — for agreeing to the April date, accusing him of wanting to rush the case in the middle of election season.

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“The judge cannot go fast enough,” he said. “He wants to get it started too badly.”

“It’s not fair,” Trump claimed of the trial date, adding Merchan “knows that.”

During the roughly 20-minute long press conference, Trump repeated many of the refrains he’s recycled amid his legal woes including that all the cases against him are “election interference” and a political “witch hunt” being carried out by a Democratic cabal led by President Biden to keep him from winning in the 2024 election.

The former commander-in-chief repeatedly attacked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who found Trump carried out fraud in his business dealings and issued the $454 million judgement against him last month. 

Trump also went after New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office prosecuted the civil case against him. And he ripped Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office is handling the upcoming “hush money” trial, as well as the lead prosecutor on the criminal case, Matthew Colangelo.

“So what they do is they do election interference, which is court cases and let’s try and tie him up, and let’s take as much of his money as possible,” Trump claimed. “I respect the appellate division for substantially reducing that ridiculous amount of money that was put on by a corrupt judge named Engoron that will be looked at.”

Trump claimed another problem with the case against him is the fact that Colangelo — a longtime Department of Justice official who was hired into Bragg’s office in December 2022 — was another alleged operative in the supposed Democratic conspiracy against him.

“Colangelo is a radical left from the DOJ who was put into the state working for Letitia James, and was then put into the District Attorney’s office to run the trial against Trump,” he told reporters.

Trump claimed that if he wasn’t running for reelection, none of the four criminal cases or James’ civil case would have been brought against him.

“If I wasn’t running these trials wouldn’t be happening,” he claimed.The New York criminal case had initially been set to start Monday with jury selection until it was postponed because Trump’s side said they needed more time to go through thousands of pages of new evidence turned over earlier this month.Trump is accused of having a payment made to ex-porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about her alleged affair with Trump in the lead up to the 2016 election.

In James’ case, Engoron found that Trump carried out a decade-long fraud scheme in which he exaggerated his net worth by billions a year on financial statements to get better loan and insurance terms.

Trump has said he plans to appeal Engoron’s ruling but he needed to post either the full $454 million cash or secure a bond for the amount.

Trump’s lawyers asked for the bond amount to either be reduced or waived altogether citing difficulties getting a backer after having approached some 30 surety companies. 

The Appellate Division, First Department Monday reduced the amount to $175 million and paused much of Engoron’s decision until the whole appeal is decided. They gave Trump 10 days to post the lower bond — at which time the pause of the case will take effect.