Trump claims he has $454m fine amount ‘in his bank account’ but plans to spend it running for president

Donald Trump claims he has nearly half a billion dollars in his bank account and that he intends to use it for his presidential election campaign, as he faces a Monday deadline to prevent his properties from being seized.

Justice Arthur Engoron in February ruled that the 45th president and his adult sons must pay in excess of $464m for grossly inflating his net worth and the value of his assets for more than a decade to obtain favourable conditions on loans.

Mr Trump must either find the cash or post a bond to prevent the state's authorities from seizing his properties while he appeals the ruling.

Earlier it appeared that the Republican presidential candidate lacked the cash and 30 surety companies were “unwilling” to use his namesake properties as collateral. His lawyers told the court it was impossible for the former president to raise that amount of money.

The companies approached “will only accept cash or cash equivalents” such as marketable securities, they said, and would typically “require collateral of approximately 120 per cent of the amount of the judgment,” which, in this case, comes to almost $560m.

However, Mr Trump on Monday claimed he was asked to pay the fine of almost half a billion dollars because the judge "saw a similar amount in his bank account", adding that he intended to "use much of that hard earned money on running for president".

"They don't want me to do that," he lashed out on Truth Social, calling it an "election interference".

Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that the New York fraud case is a political manoeuvre designed to favour his 2024 rival Joe Biden. He has railed against the judge involved and New York attorney general Letitia James, accusing them of corruption, and did so again in the small hours of Monday morning.

"Why should a Crooked, highly political New York Judge, Arthur Engoron, working in concert and coordination with an even more Corrupt Attorney General, Letitia “Peekaboo” James, his Puppet Master, and the White House, be allowed to take away, and sell off, very successful properties and assets that took me years to zone, build and nurture into some of the best of their kind anywhere in the World - WHEN I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG!" he asked.

In a previous post on Truth Social on Friday, Mr Trump also claimed he has almost $500m in cash. In a deposition in April 2023 with New York attorney general Letitia James, he said he had substantially in excess of $400m in cash.

That number has gone up from Trump's previous disclosures. In June 2021, a statement of financial condition that Mr Trump submitted to the court showed that he had $293.8m worth of cash and cash equivalents at the time.

He has a variety of sources of income, according to financial disclosure forms filed with the federal government in August 2023.

Mr Trump in 2022 reported at least $537m in revenues related to golf courses and hotels, $30.4m in licensing fees and royalties, $26.5m of management fees, and $61.1m in distributions from his stake in buildings such as 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York.

Meanwhile, Eric Trump, the former president's son and co-defandant in the fraud case, accused Ms James of trying to bankrupt his father with the judgment.

"A half a billion dollar bond is simply not commercially available," he said in a post on X.

"The 30 largest bonding companies in the United States have never seen a bond close to this size for anyone, let alone a private company.

"Letitia James is hellbent on a political vendetta against my father with zero regard for the lives of thousands of hard-working New Yorkers, who make their living in our buildings."

Additional reporting by agencies