ANALYSIS – Only days ago, the hyperpartisan New York Attorney General Letitia James was salivating over the possibility that she could soon begin seizing Donald Trump's assets, most likely real estate, if he was unable to raise the cash for a $464 million bond in his civil fraud case.
And so were all the Trump haters and the leftist media. (RELATED: Nikki Haley Presents Ultimatum To Donald Trump)
However, on March 18, Trump's lawyers filed a court document declaring they were unable to secure the bond amount. This raised the possibility that James could have begun the process of seizing his assets on March 25, most likely targeting his properties and golf courses.
At the time Trump's net worth was valued at $2.5 billion, most of it in illiquid assets such as real estate.
This possibility was staved off when the judge reduced the bond and extended the deadline. (RELATED: Appeals Court Reduces Trump's Civil Fraud Judgment Significantly)
A New York Court of Appeals judge has granted Donald Trump's request to pause his $464 million civil fraud judgement, giving him 10 days to put up a reduced sum of $175 million. The former president's legal team previously said he was unable to secure a bond from any of 30 private bond companies they solicited for the $464 million.
He had faced a deadline of Monday to put up the bond or pay the full amount.
Trump was found liable earlier this year for repeatedly inflating the value of his assets, something no one has ever cared about, or been prosecuted for in New York's history. And Judge Arthur Engoron came down hard on Trump, imposing a judgment of $355 million plus interest, amounting to $454 million (soon going up to $464 with added interest).
Had the appeals court judge not overruled Engoron and reduced the bond and extended the deadline, James was already drawing up her hit list of Trump properties to seize. (RELATED: MyPillow Evicted From Warehouse Over Unpaid Rent)
Newsweek claims to have reviewed a document from the attorney general's office that lists these properties owned by Trump that had “fraudulent” and “misleading” values attached to them.
Still, all this might be moot as Trump's net worth just doubled in a day to roughly $7 billion, making him richer than George Soros and set to surpass Mark Cuban and George Lucas.
As Forbes reported:
Donald Trump got more than $4 billion richer today after shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates the Truth Social platform, began trading on the Nasdaq. Forbes now estimates that Trump—who was worth an estimated $2.3 billion before shareholders voted last week to approve the long-delayed plan to take TMTG public—now has a net worth of $6.4 billion… That makes the former president one of the 450 richest people in the world, according to Forbes' real-time tracker.
It's a remarkable reversal of fortune for Trump, whose net worth has dwindled in recent years as many of his assets, which include office space and retail real estate, have lost value. He's also on the hook for more than $540 million in legal judgments from two court battles in New York state, liabilities Forbes has deducted from our estimate of his net worth while he appeals [this amount has now shrunk considerably]. Trump's nearly 79 million shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, which trades under the ticker DJT (Trump's initials), are now—by far—his largest asset, worth nearly twice as much as all his real estate, resort and cash holdings combined.
Yet it remains to be seen how much of this newfound wealth Trump can actually put to use. While his shares are worth billions on paper, Trump is currently barred from selling any of the stock or pledging it as collateral for loans for six months due to a lock-up agreement. There's no telling where the shares will be trading by the time the agreement expires.
However, the company's board, which includes Donald Trump Jr., has the power to waive or reduce the waiting time before Trump can cash out. Never underestimate the “comeback kid.”
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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