They're now claiming that the insurer backing Trump's bond just isn't good enough for New York.
An insurance company will not be permitted to post a $175 million bond for Donald Trump while he appeals a fraud judgment, a former federal prosecutor has said.
Eric Lisann was reacting to a separate comment by another lawyer, Dave Kingman, who wrote that Knight Specialty Insurance will not be able to post the bond for Trump.
Kingman wrote that, as a result, New York Attorney General Letitia James will be able to begin enforcement proceedings on Donald Trump's properties.
A New York court has rejected Knight Specialty's paperwork and said it wanted to see more information on its financial backing. The company filed new paperwork on April 4.
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Writing on X, formerly Twitter, one-time federal prosecutor Lisann wrote that Knight Speciality might not be able to post the bond for Trump and will be liable for the full amount because it had given a guarantee to the court.
"Looks like there is a real possibility that this Don Hankey-owned Knight Specialty Insurance does not itself have liquidity, and did not get from Trump collateral, sufficient to provide legally cognizable assurance that it can pay $175 million on demand in the event of a judgment-affirming appeal," he said.
A court must intervene and pull this prosecutor and this judge off this case.
Meanwhile, Trump is daring the liberal Democrat New York judge who slapped an (unconstitutional) gag order on him to throw him in jail.
Indeed. Trump needs to escalate this to get responsible courts to act quickly.
Former President Donald Trump dared the New York judge overseeing his criminal trial in Manhattan to throw him in jail and compared himself to the deceased, former South African leader Nelson Mandela over the gag order in the case.
New York Judge Juan Merchan issued a gag order against Trump last week to prevent the former president from publicly discussing jurors, court staffers, attorneys and their families connected to the criminal hush money case.
"If this Partisan Hack wants to put me in the 'clink' for speaking the open and obvious TRUTH, I will gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela - It will be my GREAT HONOR," Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social about Merchan's gag order. Trump is still able to comment on Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, just not their families under the order.
"We have to Save our Country from these Political Operatives masquerading as Prosecutors and Judges, and I am willing to sacrifice my Freedom for that worthy cause," Trump also wrote.
Relatedly: A DC judge attacks Trump publicly while, at the same time, whining that Trump is attacking liberal judges.
They're always like this -- special rules for the Politically Elect.
But even worse: This judge granted the DOJ carte blanch to spy on January 6th dissidents, granting search warrants for their computers.
We had to destroy the democracy in order to save it.
D.C. Circuit Judge Reggie Walton recently caused a stir in Washington after doing an interview with CNN in which he rebuked former President Donald Trump for his criticism of judges and their family members. Now, Judge Walton has been criticized by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a surveillance order of the computer of a January 6th defendant to detect any spreading of "disinformation" or "misinformation."
Critics charged that Walton's interview with CNN ran afoul of Canon 3A(6) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which states: "A judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court."
The issue of these public statements by Trump is currently pending before both state and federal courts, including proceedings in the District of Columbia. At a minimum, Judge Walton's interview showed poor judicial judgment and only reaffirmed the distrust and suspicion of many over the independence of the court system in addressing these controversial cases.
Judge Walton previously called Trump a "charlatan," and said that "I don't think he cares about democracy, only power."
I have previously criticized Trump for public comments against judges and believe that such matters should be primarily raised in court filings. Nevertheless, I have serious objections to the scope of these gag orders on free speech grounds, particularly before an election that could turn in large part on allegations of the weaponization of the legal system. Moreover, we now have a judge who feels the same license to make such criticisms in the media despite the ongoing litigation of these matters.
That alleged transgression, however, pales in comparison to a failure to protect the rights of this defendant from the abusive or unsupported surveillance of the government.
The order reflects the utter impunity shown by the Justice Department in its pursuit of January 6th defendants. Justice Department official Michael Sherwin proudly declared in a television interview that "our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe ... it worked because we saw through media posts that people were afraid to come back to D.C. because they're, like, 'If we go there, we're gonna get charged.' ... We wanted to take out those individuals that essentially were thumbing their noses at the public for what they did."
Sherwin was celebrated for his pledge to use such draconian means to send a message to others in the country. (Sherwin has left the Justice Department and is now a partner at Kobre & Kim).
The surveillance of the computer shows that the Justice Department continues to act with a sense of utter impunity, particularly when judges are willing to blithely sign off on such orders.
The case involved Daniel Goodwyn, 35, of Corinth, Texas, who pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2023, to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. That is a relatively minor offense but Walton imposed a 60-day jail sentence in June 2023.
Walton reportedly noted that Goodwyn spread "disinformation" during a broadcast of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on March 14, 2023 and ordered that Mr. Goodwyn's computer be subject to "monitoring and inspection" by a probation agent to check if he spread Jan. 6 disinformation during the term of his supervised release.
As a condition for supervised release, the Justice Department was reportedly seeking evidence on the defendant's political opinions and Walton felt that that was fine. The appellate judges (Gregory Katsas, Neomi Rao, and Bradley Garcia) did not: "The district court plainly erred in imposing the computer-monitoring condition without considering whether it was 'reasonably related' to the relevant sentencing factors and involved 'no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary' to achieve the purposes behind the sentencing."
Also relatedly: Fani Willis and her blown-out busted-up scamper have raised $80,000 since she hit Trump with a PMS indictment.
feelin' blue, gonna indict the president