Donald Trump pleaded for special permission on Wednesday to post only a small portion of the civil fraud award against him, officially entered at $464 million. He lost, but an appellate court judge created a path that may allow him to borrow money to put up the entire amount he owes. But Trump’s pleading is the latest indication that his wealth is not nearly as vast as he claims.
Losers in civil cases routinely must put up cash or a bond covering the entire award if they want to delay paying the winners while they appeal. The former president, though, asked permission to deposit only $100 million, less than a fourth of the award plus interest.
Trump has frequently sought forgiveness and official favors since I started reporting on his finances more than 35 years ago.
Appellate Judge Anil Singh lifted the trial court’s ban on Trump borrowing money from New York banks. But it remains to be seen whether any licensed financial institution will lend Trump the money he needs. Not that desperation for cash is new for Trump. Whether paying interest on loans, repaying loan principal, paying vendors, workers or taxes, Trump has frequently sought forgiveness and official favors since I started reporting on his finances more than 35 years ago.
In 1990, he told me he was worth $3 billion. I said that I didn’t believe him because I, a newspaper reporter with eight children, paid my bills on time, while he hadn’t paid hundreds of suppliers in months. A few hours later, Trump told another reporter that he was worth more than $5 billion.
Soon New Jersey casino regulators revealed that Trump owed $295 million more than the value of his assets. As I reported at the time: “You are probably worth more than Donald Trump.”
My impression, after decades of following Trump’s financial travails, is that he just makes it up. Indeed, in 2007, Trump testified under oath that his net worth depends on his mood. But one cannot pay a civil fraud award in moods.
The clock is ticking fast on Trump having to put up cash or obtain bonds to prevent the seizure and sale of some of his prized properties, such as 40 Wall Street, the portions of Trump Tower he still owns, and perhaps even Mar-a-Lago. (However, that would involve Florida courts as Trump would surely fight such a move on presumably friendlier turf.) The former president only has until March 12 to come up with cash or a bond to cover the $83.3 million a federal jury in Manhattan recently ordered him to pay former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll for defaming her. Carroll also won $5 million in an earlier case; Trump hasn’t attacked Carroll since that second jury decision.
When Trump announced his presidential campaign in 2015, he repeatedly said he was worth more than $10 billion.
The fraud and Carroll cases together entail at least $537 million. And more cases are pending, including those filed by U.S. Capitol Police officers injured on Jan. 6, 2021, when a Trump-inflamed mob of his supporters descended on the Capitol, yelling “Hang Mike Pence” and calling for killing then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other elected officials.
In defending his client’s attempt to weasel his way out of putting up the full amount, Trump lawyer Christopher Kise told Judge Singh Wednesday that “no one, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Donald Trump, has $500 million lying around.”
It was a curious remark since Trump testified last year that he had $400 million in cash. He also has been pleading with supporters for donations, and just last year spent $50 million of their money to pay lawyers for himself and associates.
When Trump announced his presidential campaign in 2015, he repeatedly said he was worth more than $10 billion. After he became president, Trump asked the federal Office of Government Ethics for permission to file his financial disclosure without signing, which is done under penalty of perjury. That request for special treatment was denied. By my count his signed filing showed a net worth of about $1 billion, while Forbes estimated it at more than $3 billion — in both cases far less than his claims. New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office told the appeals court in writing that it sees a “substantial risk that defendants will attempt to evade enforcement of the judgment (or make enforcement more difficult) following appeal. Trump’s strategy is to delay payment of the civil awards — and his four pending criminal trials — until after the November presidential election. He may also file personal bankruptcy to add additional delays. Whether the attempts at delaying payment in the courts succeed though is another matter. Trump’s appeal in the New York civil fraud case is premised on his claim that neither facts nor the law support Judge Arthur Engoron’s decision. His lawyers asserted that the judgment “orders unprecedented and punitive disgorgement of nearly $460 million and overbroad permanent injunctive relief” despite what they called “the absence of legal authority or factual support.” Trump’s lawyers filed nearly 1,800 pages with the state appellate court, included over 70 pages of far-fetched claims published by pro-Trump websites. Appeals courts don’t retry facts. They look for errors or unreasonable conduct by a judge, neither of which seems plausible in this case, though an appellate court might eventually scale back the disgorgement award. In addition, the appeal filing was overwrought, more political than legal. Trump’s lawyers filed nearly 1,800 pages with the state appellate court, included over 70 pages of far-fetched claims published by pro-Trump websites. One fevered article asserted that Trump was “framed and publicly lynched by the government, politicians, prosecutors and court system” using “a combination of Soviet KGB, East German Stasi, and Nazi Gestapo.” That will play well with those Trump supporters who read such documents but not with appeals court judges. The permission for special treatment is unlikely to be granted, but it won’t be Trump’s last tactic to stall enforcement of judicial awards that may well expose the true level of his wealth.
David Cay Johnston
David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and bestselling author who teaches at Syracuse University College of Law. He has written three books about Donald Trump since 2016. 
