The $91.6 million bond that Donald Trump posted in federal court Monday raises troubling new questions about the presumptive Republican nominee’s fitness to serve again as president.
Among them: How might Trump’s debts influence his actions as president? Who might exert leverage over him? Would he look the other way at wrongful acts by his creditors? How could national security decisions be influenced by his being deeply in debt to a foreign company?
Interest alone will cost Trump millions more if his appeal lasts more than a month or so.
Those concerns will only be magnified if, as expected, Trump posts a much larger bond while he appeals the $454 million judgment that New York State obtained after proving during a seven-week trial that Trump engaged in persistent financial fraud. Interest alone will cost Trump millions more if his appeal lasts more than a month or so.
Andrew Weismann, the former FBI general counsel (who is also an MSNBC legal analyst) neatly summarized the problem on X: “The public has no idea who may have actually put up the money or provided a guaranty to support the bond. But one thing’s sure: Trump is beholden to someone for a lot of money.”
I call owing a fortune to anyone, but especially foreign interests that do business in Russia, a national security nightmare.
In this regard, what should concern us all are Trump’s many — and false — declarations that our Constitution gives each president unlimited powers, including the power to murder and commit other crimes with impunity. And there’s his admiration for dictators, which he has said he will become, but only for his first day in office.
The someone Trump owes for the $91.6 million bond in the second defamation case won by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll is Chubb, a giant Swiss insurance company that operates in 54 countries. Chubb owns three insurance companies in Russia.
Chubb may well become the source of the much larger bond Trump needs in the New…
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