“Travesty of justice”: Expert decries court for giving Trump “last-minute” break on $454M bond

A New York appellate court on Monday partially granted former President Donald Trump’s request to stay the $454 million fraud judgment against him as he faced a Monday deadline to pay up or post bond.

A five-judge panel of appellate court judges lowered Trump’s bond requirement to $175 million to appeal the ruling and gave him an additional 10 days to post the bond.

Trump’s lawyers previously asked for the bond to be lowered to $100 million and told the court last week that it has proved “impossible” for Trump to attain a bond in the full amount required even after approaching 30 different underwriters.

“Donald Trump is still facing accountability for his staggering fraud," New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. "The court has already found that he engaged in years of fraud to falsely inflate his net worth and unjustly enrich himself, his family, and his organization. The $464 million judgment – plus interest – against Donald Trump and the other defendants still stands.”

Longtime Harvard legal scholar Laurence Tribe called the “unexplained reduction” in Trump’s bond a “travesty of justice” and accused the court of granting the former president “preferential treatment.”

“We had anticipated this possibility given that court's pro-business reputation, but they certainly waited to the last minute to do it,” tweeted former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman.

Conservative attorney and frequent Trump critic George Conway said he was “not surprised” by the ruling.

“I had a feeling they’d split the baby somehow,” he wrote. “Still, a $175m bond is a pretty substantial undertaking.”