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Donald Trump's attorney Alina Habba had to eat her words Wednesday after admitting that the former president did not have the cash bond required to appeal his fraud trial ruling in New York.
In a filing in federal court, lawyers for Trump asked to stay Justice Arthur Engoron's decision ordering the billionaire to pay a $454.2 million judgment in a fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The document said that Trump would need to sell his properties to come up with the cash to pay a bond required for his appeal to go forward.
"In the absence of a stay on the terms herein outlined," the filing noted, "properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances, and there would be no way to recover any property sold following a successful appeal and no means to recover the resulting financial losses from the Attorney General."
But only a week earlier, Habba bragged about Trump's wealth.
"Does Donald Trump have that kind of money sitting around?" Habba was asked during an interview on Newsmax.
"Yes," the attorney replied. "I mean, he does, of course he has money. You know, he's a billionaire. We know that."
"So he'll just write a check, Alina?" the host pressed.
"I'm not gonna get into privileged information, but there will be a bond, and there will be no issues with that," she added. "So that's all I'll say on that."
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Habba made a similar claim to Fox News.
"What they're trying to do between this case between my last case is put [Trump] out of business," she argued. "It's not gonna work, number one. Number two, what they're doing is a scare tactic. Unfortunately, they picked the wrong guy to pick on, in my opinion, because he's strong, he's resilient and he happens to have a lot of cash."
James successfully took legal action against Trump and his business, alleging they were involved in fraudulent activities.
The lawsuit claimed that Trump and his company greatly exaggerated the value of their assets, including properties and wealth, to banks and insurance companies to get loans and benefits they didn't rightfully deserve.
This deceptive practice misled financial institutions and authorities, leading to unfair advantages for Trump's business empire. James aims to hold Trump accountable for these actions, emphasizing the importance of honesty and transparency in financial dealings.