Trump fraud bond documents rejected as he is forced to come clean about finances: Latest

As we reported earlier, documents for Trump’s $175m bond in his New York civil fraud case have been rejected and “returned for correction” to the former president due to missing financial information.

A docket appeared on the New York County Supreme Court website on Wednesday, detailing that a “Bond/Undertaking” had been “returned for correction”.

Here’s what that means.

Trump recently spoke with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to The New York Times.

The newspaper reports that it was unclear what Trump and the prince, known as MBS, had discussed and whether this was their first conversation since the former president left office in 2021.

Saudi Arabia was his first foreign trip when he took office in 2017.

Due to a cracked rib, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan postponed plans to travel to Saudi Arabia this week to meet with the crown prince, who is considered the de facto leader of his nation.

Sullivan had been due to hold talks with the prince amid a US push for progress toward normalising relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Ty Cobb predicted yesterday that the 11th Circuit Court could ultimately elect to have Judge Aileen Cannon removed from the case involving Trump’s illegal retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Speaking on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, the ex-Trump administration official pointed to special counsel Jack Smith’s aforementioned Tuesday filing and said he believes it makes clear that Smith plans to take the case up to the 11th Circuit if Judge Cannon does not rule promptly.

“I think that Jack Smith– I think the filing today makes it plain that she has to rule, and if she doesn’t rule under either scenario, they’ll be in a position to take her up to the 11th Circuit. And I think the 11th Circuit will likely take her off the case,” Cobb said.

Special counsel Jack Smith has slammed the judge presiding over Trump’s federal classified documents case over an order in which she asked prosecutors and defence lawyers to file proposed jury instructions based on a “fundamentally flawed legal premise”.

Judge Aileen Cannon, who the former president appointed, appeared to accept an argument Trump is pushing that he was entitled to retain sensitive documents at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, under a statute known as the Presidential Records Act.

The order, filed on 19 March, baffled legal experts and commentators and alarmed Smith’s team.

Prosecutors argued in a filing late on Tuesday that the 1978 law — which requires presidents to return presidential records to the government upon leaving office but allows them to keep purely personal ones — has no relevance in the case, which concerns Trump refusing to return highly-sensitive classified documents.

Smith’s response to the judge also contained a fairly overt critique of her handling of the case thus far.

Oliver O’Connell has more.

The Republican saw paperwork related to the $175m bond he posted on Monday to appeal the $464m New York fraud judgement against him rejected and “returned for correction” yesterday, according to the New York County Supreme Court.

The documentation failed to include a current financial statement or list an attorney-in-fact and has been returned to the presidential candidate for resubmission.

Trump has found new ways to push the envelope in criticising Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter and other elements of the New York criminal trial he deems “unfair” – even after the gag order was extended in the case.

On Monday, Judge Merchan expanded the gag order to include family members of the court staff after Trump attacked the judge’s daughter Loren Merchan, who has worked on Democratic campaigns.

The order now prevents Trump from publicly commenting about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, jurors and now the family of court staff to prevent any harm to the trial.

But on social media, the former president has found ways to skirt the order by sharing his opinions in other ways: by re-posting clips of others criticising Ms Merchan and using vague language in his own posts.

The Manhattan judge presiding over Trump’s upcoming hush money trial has denied his latest bid to have his criminal case delayed on presidential immunity grounds, saying the former president’s filing was “untimely.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Judge Juan Merchan submitted a six-page filing denying Trump’s last-ditch effort to delay the proceedings, which are due to being on 15 April, after the defendant’s legal team had previously successfully delayed it by 30 days.

Trump submitted the motion on 7 March, asking Judge Merchan to delay the trial until after the US Supreme Court has ruled on whether the presidential immunity defence applies to criminal charges against sitting or former presidents, a matter it will begin considering on 25 April.

Trump’s election campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $65.6m in March, ending the month with $93.1m in cash on hand, Politico reports.

The total covers a range of fundraising vehicles supporting the former president’s goal of returning to the White House, all of which will have to disclose their activities to the Federal Election Commission later this month.

Trump’s allies hope it will go some way towards easing concerns that President Joe Biden is way ahead of his Republican rival in terms of fundraising, though no figures have emerged from the Democrats as of yet.

It is known that the president raised $26m in a single night during a New York City fundraiser attended by former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama last week, however.

In February, the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised $53m, ending the month with $155m on hand, whereas Trump raised just $20.3m in February with $40.9m on hand.

He’s been celebrating the news on Truth Social – and throwing up a comically cruddy Jan 6 choir video for good measure.

Here’s our earlier reporting on RFK Jr’s original comments:

A new poll from The Wall Street Journal shows Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in seven key battleground states, but within the margin of error (+/-4 points) in most. The same is true when further candidates are included in the equation.