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Earlier this year, New York Attorney General Letitia James secured a $464 million judgment against former President Donald Trump and other defendants in her civil fraud case, nearly $454 million of which is collectible from Trump himself. As of this writing, Trump still maintains that posting an undertaking or a bond to cover that judgment while he appeals it is a “practical impossibility.” And he has not rescinded or modified that representation even while boasting on his social media that he has almost $500 million in cash, as he did Friday morning.
So unless and until a New York state appeals court reduces or eliminates Trump’s need to post that security to stay enforcement of the judgment, James might be able to start her enforcement efforts as soon as Monday.
Still, I don’t expect that she’ll immediately move to seize or sell any of Trump’s best-known properties, like Trump Tower, which are subject to outstanding loans.
It’s true, as my colleague Katie Phang noted Wednesday, that prior mortgages on Trump properties won’t themselves prevent James from trying to collect on those assets. But some of those loans are bigger than appreciated.
Take, for example, Axos Bank’s loans to Trump for Trump Tower’s commercial portion and the Doral golf course in Miami. Both loans are listed as “over $50 million” on Trump’s August 2023 Office of Government Ethics disclosure. But according to The Washington Post, the loans are actually more than twice that figure: $100 million for Trump Tower and $125 million for Doral.
Meanwhile, as one would expect, Axos left no stone unturned in terms of what collateral Trump pledged. How do I know? Because its financing statement, as filed with the New York secretary of state, describes not only its interest in Trump Tower’s commercial unit, but also all leases associated with it and more.
I tell you this because while Trump complains that the New York AG is desperate to sell off his empire, James herself has little interest in doing so. Not only would she collect after any prior secured lenders and/or creditors are paid but also, as her office explained in a reply brief Wednesday, shifting “the risk of executing on Defendants’ illiquid assets” to the attorney general would itself be unacceptable.
In fact, the position of the attorney general's office is that if Trump and his businesses truly cannot obtain or provide an undertaking, they should consent to have their real estate assets “held by [the New York] Supreme Court to satisfy the judgment.”
In other words, the office is saying that it does not want a mess of “a fire sale” any more than Trump does; in lieu of an adequate bond or cash, it would much rather Trump simply let the court hold the assets in a kind of escrow.
That doesn’t mean James can’t or won’t force a sale of assets like Trump Tower. But as satisfying as some of her constituents might find it, it’s by no means her first or even second preference. Remember that if and when, as early as Monday, she is once again in the driver’s seat and can begin enforcing her judgment.