Trump secures $91 million bond for judgment in E. Jean Carroll defamation case

(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump has secured a $91,630,000 bond for the judgment in his defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll.

The former president obtained an appeals bond from the Federal Insurance Company totaling $91,630,000 to cover the $83 million judgment in the case plus interest, according to a court filing Friday morning.

Trump on Friday also filed a notice of appeal of the judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Either paying the judgment or posting a bond for the judgment’s full amount was required for him to move ahead with the appeal.

“President Trump respectfully requests that this Court recognize the supersedeas bond obtained by President Trump in the sum of $91,630,000.00 and approve it as adequate and sufficient to stay the enforcement of the Judgment, to the extent that the Judgment awards damages, pending the ultimate disposition of President Trump’s appeal,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in Friday’s filing.

In a statement to ABC News, Habba said they are confident that their appeal will result in the judgment being overturned.

“Due to the numerous prejudicial errors made at the lower level, we are highly confident that the Second Circuit will overturn this egregious judgment,” Habba said.

The former president in January was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegation that he sexually abused her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. Trump, who said Carroll was “totally lying” and that she was “not my type,” has denied all wrongdoing.

On Thursday, the judge overseeing the case denied Trump’s request for a temporary delay of the penalties.

“Mr. Trump’s current situation is a result of his own dilatory actions,” Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in his order Thursday. “He has had since January 26 to organize his finances with the knowledge that he might need to bond this judgment, yet he waited until 25 days after the jury verdict … to file his prior motion for an unsecured or partially secured stay pending resolution of post-trial motions.”

Kaplan said that Trump failed to show how the judgment constitutes an “irreparable injury” or demonstrate the expenses he faces by posting a bond in the case.

“The expense of ongoing litigation in the absence of a stay does not constitute ‘irreparable injury’ in the relevant sense of that term,” Kaplan wrote.