George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said that former President Donald Trump’s failing to post a bond would be the “worst possible prospect.”
Trump’s attorneys said Monday the former president was having difficulty posting a bond of over $450 million to cover the judgment in a civil fraud case issued by New York Judge Arthur Engoron. Turley told Fox News host Martha MacCallum that the former president’s inability to appeal by not posting the bond was the “worst possible prospect” for both the former president and the New York legal system.
“Trump does not have much runway left. He is at that point where he is committed, he can’t really stop the plane but he needs it to take off, because at the end of that runway, if he doesn’t get that bond, he could be viewed in default and he can be viewed as losing his right to appeal,” Turley said. “That would be the worst possible prospect not just for Trump, but for the New York legal system.”
“I think what the court did here was outrageous,” Turley continued. “It came out with this figure, none of us can really figure how he could justify that. He could have said a billion or two billion because it would have the same level of relevance in connection to the evidence, but it would also have the same impact. You can’t just go to a person and say produce half a billion dollars if you want any other judge to look at what I did.”
“Shark Tank” co-star Kevin O’Leary said after the judgment he would not invest in New York any longer, calling it a “mega-loser state.”
“What bothers me about this is that there are so many ways that the judge could have worked this out to achieve the purpose of the bond rule,” Turley said. “The whole point is you don’t want someone to flee with their assets … You know, Trump Tower is a fixed asset, he’s not going to not abscond with it overnight. You could take the 100 million in cash, you can get those types of agreements and achieve the purpose, but the purpose seems punitive and you saw that on ‘The View.’”
Democratic Attorney General Letitia James campaigned on investigating Trump when seeking her current office in 2018, labeling him an “illegitimate president.” She sued Trump in September 2022, alleging he overstated the value of real estate holdings in order to obtain loans.
“You don’t have to like Trump not to like what is happening here, and this is one of the premier legal jurisdictions that I think is going to have an existential moment here of whether they can separate themselves from the personalities and the passions of the moment,” Turley said.
