Panic mode sets in for Trump as he faces deadline for massive bond
CNN
Former President Donald Trump is in panic mode as the deadline approaches to secure a half-billion-dollar bond to appeal his civil fraud case in New York, according to multiple sources familiar with his thinking.
Former President Donald Trump is in panic mode as the deadline approaches to secure a half-billion-dollar bond to appeal his civil fraud case in New York, according to multiple sources familiar with his thinking. Trump’s lawyers acknowledged Monday that he was struggling to find an insurance company willing to underwrite his $454 million bond. Privately, Trump had been counting on Chubb, which underwrote his $91.6 million bond to cover the E. Jean Carroll judgment, to come through, but the insurance giant informed his attorneys in the last several days that that option was off the table. Trump’s team has sought out wealthy supporters and weighed what assets could be sold – and fast. The presumptive GOP presidential nominee himself has become increasingly concerned about the optics the March 25 deadline could present – especially the prospect that someone whose identity has long been tied to his wealth would confront financial crisis. Trump has continued to privately lash out at the New York Attorney General Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron over the matter, these sources told CNN. (James provided a 30-day grace period after Engoron ruled.) Shortly before 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, Trump took those grievances public, posting on his social media platform eight times within two hours about the deadline, arguing that he shouldn’t have to put up the money and worrying that he “would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone.” “Does that make sense? WITCH HUNT. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” the former president wrote. “These baseless innuendos are pure bullsh*t,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement Tuesday. “President Trump has filed a motion to stay the unjust, unconstitutional, un-American judgment from New York Judge Arthur Engoron in a political Witch Hunt brought by a corrupt Attorney General. A bond of this size would be an abuse of the law, contradict bedrock principals of our Republic, and fundamentally undermine the rule of law in New York.”
The Army gynecologist described in a recent lawsuit as a “predator in uniform” is now being held in the Bell County Jail in Texas, “after apparently violating conditions of liberty imposed by his commander,” according to an Army spokesperson.
Brian Walshe on Thursday came face-to-face for the first time with the man who had been having an affair with his wife before her death, as he took the stand to testify in Walshe’s murder trial.
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Texas to use a congressional map that will boost President Donald Trump’s effort to keep Republicans in control of Congress, blocking a lower court decision that found the new boundaries were likely unconstitutional because they were drawn based on race.
The US military carried out a strike Thursday on a suspected drug boat in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to a social media post from US Southern Command.
A grand jury voted against indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James after being asked to look at the mortgage fraud case against her a second time, according to multiple people familiar with the development Thursday.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge’s ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city’s streets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bad week just got worse. That’s after the long-awaited release Thursday of an inspector general’s report on his sharing of highly sensitive military attack plans on the unclassified app Signal earlier this year.
President Donald Trump has hired a new architect for the White House ballroom amid disputes between the president and his architect originally contracted to complete the project, several sources have told CNN.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked compromising sensitive military information that could have endangered US troops through his use of Signal to discuss attack plans, a Pentagon watchdog said in an unclassified report released Thursday. It also details how Hegseth declined to cooperate with the probe.
If nothing else, the controversy over the Trump administration’s second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean has surfaced a long-overdue debate about its already legally dubious first strikes.
Two top House lawmakers emerged divided along party lines after a private briefing with the military official who oversaw September’s attack on an alleged drug vessel that included a so-called double-tap strike that killed surviving crew members, with a top Democrat calling video of the incident that was shared as part of the briefing “one of the most troubling things” he has seen as a lawmaker.
Authorities in Colombia are dealing with increasingly sophisticated criminals, who use advanced tech to produce and conceal the drugs they hope to export around the world. But police and the military are fighting back, using AI to flag suspicious passengers, cargo and mail - alongside more conventional air and sea patrols. CNN’s Isa Soares gets an inside look at Bogotá’s war on drugs.
Young Americans are “a generation under profound strain” with little confidence in institutions and widespread economic concerns, according to a Harvard Institute of Politics survey of adults younger than 30 released Thursday.