Trump faces first diversion of campaign strategy to court

For days, Donald Trump's fury over the pressure to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to post bail by Monday has been circulating behind the scenes and through a steady stream of social media posts.

Friday's public barrage on his Truth Social platform, which included several posts in all caps, highlighted his lingering anger with the judge who handed down the $464 million judgment, the New York attorney general who brought the civil fraud case and Trump's insistence that it was all designed to derail his presidential campaign.

The posts, including one sent in the early hours of Friday, contained a mix of provocations and claims devoid of facts or evidence. (There is no evidence that the White House played any role in the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, much less ordered her to pursue her effort. Nor is there evidence that Trump, as he has claimed, has plans to use your own money for the presidential campaign.)

But, in the posts, a reality was also embedded that took Trump's company and personal finances to the brink with just two days left to find a solution.

Trump, as he himself noted, has a significant amount of money, according to a review of his most recent candidate financial disclosures and personal financial statements.

It's a key he repeatedly hit in his deposition and testimony during the New York fraud trial, although he diverged from his last social media statement that he had “nearly five hundred million dollars in cash.”

During court proceedings, Trump has consistently said he has $400 million, and barring any recent, unreported cash infusion, a person familiar with his finances has confirmed that his cash holdings are just that.

However, even if the estimate is accurate, as Trump's lawyers have made clear in sober and detailed filings, it would not be enough.

The $464 million judgment levied in the verdict, and the bail that Trump is fighting to secure before the possible seizure of his assets and property, would require cash or the equivalent of more than half a billion dollars based on industry practice.

And at least some of the money Trump has is tied up in loan agreements that include terms that require him to have tens of millions of dollars in cash on hand.

In other words, as the clock ticks closer to Monday's deadline, paying bail, to quote Trump's own lawyers, remains a “practical impossibility.”

A skillful strategy

Trump's deft navigation of — and ability to leverage — his unprecedented collision of the campaign and the court set the path that helped him once again become the Republican Party's presidential nominee.

But it was the initial step by New York state lawyers in a county clerk's office 25 miles north of Trump Tower that demonstrated how dangerously close the former president is to a dramatic deviation from that strategy.

The move by James' office to enter trials in Westchester County marked a first step toward seizing Trump's assets if he is unable to post bail.

Westchester County is home to Trump's golf course and a private estate known as Seven Springs.

The initial action, which state lawyers have already taken in Manhattan, is just the beginning of what would be a complex and lengthy process.

It also came as Trump's lawyers continued to push to reduce or waive the bail requirement, calling it “clearly irrational, unfair and unconstitutional” in a Wednesday appeal.

But for Trump, a man who has made his brand and his buildings his central feature, the initial step that placed a target on one of his properties crystallized a moment unlike any other he has faced in his bid to return to the White House.

“I think the whole thing is bullshit,” said a House Republican, who has been communicating with Trump's team about the order to secure his $464 million bail pending a decision on his appeal. “But it got to the point where it felt like nothing was going to get him, so that was different.”

In other words, there could be real consequences.

Lasting support from Republicans

Over nearly a year, with four lawsuits and 88 charges accumulated, Trump's poll numbers in the Republican primary showed a steady climb.

The days when Trump faced charges, or appeared in court to face those charges, were consistently ranked among his best campaign fundraising days.

That money, in part, covered Trump's legal bills so he wouldn't have to do it alone.

The lawyers this money has funded have been vocal about their pursuit of strategies to delay proceedings – and have repeatedly succeeded.

If, as countless former campaign staffers say, presidential candidates' most valuable asset is their time, Trump's decision to repeatedly attend court hearings when his presence was not required made his view of incentives clear. As do voters.

Trump successfully – and with relative ease – cut off his best-funded and politically endowed main adversaries. He nearly locked up the Republican party's nomination after just two primary votes, as the party fell in line behind a candidate under whose watch it lost the House, the Senate and the White House.

Trump was also the same candidate who some publicly – and many more privately – hoped would simply disappear following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the steady stream of revelations that he and his advisers had sought to overturn the victory. of Joe Biden in 2020.

Those around Trump say they have seen no sign of any political damage from his latest legal stress test.

National polls continue to show a margin of error race with Biden, and more importantly, polls in battleground states have not revealed a tangible shift.

New research from CNN Conducted by SSRS in two swing states showed Trump tied with Biden in Pennsylvania at 46% each, and ahead in Michigan, 50% to 42%.

Biden flipped both states in Trump's column in 2020.

Trump's campaign apparatus trails Biden's team significantly in fundraising, but those around Trump are confident the gap will be closed. The former president, these people say, has been working privately with the party's biggest donors in a way they have never seen before.

“The money will be there,” one person told CNN . “He has never been more focused or efficient on that front than he is now.”

One adviser thought any search of Trump properties would only help the campaign politically, pointing to email and text donation appeals with phrases like “Keep your filthy hands out of Trump Tower!” as evidence to this effect.

A money dilemma

Still, the threat Trump currently faces cuts equally to his political and personal core. It's also one that carries a level of irony.

In a career, and now verdict, surrounded by a constant stream of questions about his net worth and the value of his substantial real estate assets, Trump has a significant amount of money — and a valuable property portfolio, which could more than cover the bail amount.

But insurers rarely accept real estate as collateral, fearing a complex process and a distorted market in which any offer on that property would come from entities well aware of the need to sell, Trump's lawyers said.

An insurance company, Chubb, posted a $91.63 million bond just two weeks ago in another Trump legal loss — the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

Trump's team was in discussions with Chubb about a second bond for the fraud case that included a mix of liquid assets and property. Last week, the insurance company informed Trump's team that it could not accept property as collateral.

In total, 30 insurance companies contacted by Trump's team declined to pursue the bail effort. Trump, in a Truth Social post, alluded to this fact when he noted that “it is not possible for the insurance companies to make such a large amount before I can appeal. This is crazy! If I sold assets and won the appeal, the assets would be gone forever.”

There has been a steady stream of rumors about some of Trump's richest backers stepping in to put up the money.

But so far there has been no confirmation of concrete requests, much less movement toward any agreement.

Another potential path that Trump's allies have discussed opened on Friday, when investors approved a merger that made the former president's media company, Trump Media and Technology Group, a public company. Trump's stakes in the new company would yield billions in shares.

But the availability of that money from Truth Social's parent company would be subject to a six-month “lockup” period that would hamper Trump's ability to sell any shares or use them as collateral. The billions Trump would make exist only on paper – and would be subject to fluctuations in share prices when they begin trading.

Any effort by Trump to bypass this lockout period to monetize his shares would likely have a direct and negative effect on the stock price.

Taking care of your image

Trump has repeatedly rejected the idea of ​​seeking bankruptcy, which would freeze the process for what would likely be an extended period of time.

The reasons, say counselors, cut across personal and political concerns.

Trump has been publicly vocal about the deep scars he bears from bankruptcies decades ago.

“It was an experience that I don’t think I want to go through again,” Trump said in a 1992 interview with Charlie Rose. “You're actually in a position where I think if you had to do it again, I'm not sure you could. I went through a two-year period that was really difficult.”

Trump is also aware of the potential threat he could pose to the carefully crafted image that is at the heart of his political projection: that of a billionaire business tycoon.

“No chance,” said a bankruptcy-seeking Trump aide. “He would rather Letitia James show up and try to take property from her.”

How this version of the campaign and the court's convergence will unfold will be clarified in the coming days.

For now, however, it has become clear as the bail deadline approaches ever closer that the playbook that powered Trump's political comeback has faced obstacles in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars.

This is a problem that the only political opponent who has ever defeated Trump is happy to highlight.

“I know not everyone is feeling the enthusiasm,” Biden joked at a fundraising reception in Dallas this week.

“The other day a defeated-looking man came up to me and said, 'Mr. President, I have crushing debt, and I am completely broke.' And I had to look at him and say, 'Donald, I'm so sorry. I can't help you.”