Donald Trump reportedly used a bail bondsman after being arrested at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, paying $20,000 of his bond set at $200,000 and taking out a loan for the rest of it. The fact that the former president resorted to such a measure has sparked questions on social media about the state of his finances.
Could it not just be because he hates spending his own money so he takes out loans he doesn’t intend to repay because he figured he can get out of it?
His finances are a revolving door of debt, I’d wager any money he gets has to be sent paying back the more dangerous of loans he has taken out.
The American Way™
My first thought as well.
We all know he’s not nearly as wealthy as he likes to pretend, but it’d be nearly impossible to live his lifestyle without at least 200,000 in available cash.
Likely he’s using his so-called “genius” business brain to intentionally Welch on the debt and snag himself a cool 90% discount on his bail.
Why pay 200 when you can pay 20
People in Atlanta may not know how he does business in New York and Florida.
More like TFG doesn’t know how Dog the Bounty Hunter does business.
If he doesn’t pay, he goes to jail sooooo
The orange shitstain clearly has been leveraging debt for decades.
But this is not at all a surprise. Why would he pay? Get a loan and then count on the secret service to prevent him from ever having to pay
He needs to lose his SS protections. And any other benefit the presidency provides.
I mean I’d rather he keep the ss protection. I don’t want him being martyred.
He is being seem as a martyr right now for just being charged with crimes, so being a literal martyr wouldn’t be any worse. It isn’t like he stood for something that would keep going, the only momentum his shitty followers have is seeing more of him on TV.
That said, I would rather keep the ss protection so he can rot in jail.
I’d prefer prison guards over SS but they are probably too easily corruptible.
Pretty much. Lock him in an isolated prison cell, being guarded by Secret Service members with Top Secret clearance. It’s the only way to prevent him from blabbing Top Secret intel to whichever prison guards will listen.
23 hour a day solitary would be safest for both him and the rest of the country.
No way. It’s not worth him getting assassinated by some lunatic. Honestly even if he’s successfully indicted he should be on house arrest. Lock his pudgy arse up but he has to be kept safe for obvious reason.
He will likely get house arrest, if only for the optics.
But he would be safer in a white collar prison than basically anywhere else. And the secret service wouldn’t have to cover up him constantly breaking his house arrest
He’s rich. First rule of being rich is never pay when you can borrow.
Not exactly. Rich people pay cash when doing so avoids fees. It would only make financial sense if bail bonds in Georgia go for below market rates.
If he could have paid bail through a PAC or one of his companies, that would most probably be cheaper.
He likely doesn’t have $200K to his personal name (to avoid tax) and is probably not allowed to pay bail from his PAC or company.
Rich people take loans when the loan is cheaper than an investment. If he can borrow at 10% and has money making. 12% there’s no reason not to take the loan. Rich people almost never use cash and they have very few cash in hand
Seriously this. Or if the borrowing rate is less than what you can make in the mean time by keeping it, why would you?
Except when you give 10% to the bail bondsman, you don’t get that money back.
This isn’t borrowing. This is paying.
Trump is just using the first rule of being rich…use other people’s money.
Do we even know for sure any money changed hands? Maybe the bail bonds person is a cult 45 member and sees it as service to the dear leader? Admittedly, my bail bonds knowledge is limited to late night cheesy commercials and an episode and a half of dog the bounty hunter, but I got the impression they’re something of a shady character; someone who’d be at home in the cult. No?
I’m pretty sure it’s a cult member, you might be right.
He’s obviously not poor enough to not be able to come up with 20 grand. But if your backup plan is to flee the country, why put up any of your own money? He’s going to try to be in Moscow or some other country that won’t extradite him if it starts looking bad. He might not actually pull it off but he’s dumb enough to think he can.
My head canon for that timeline involves him being hunted down for betraying the united states, and his corpse dumped in the ocean like bin laden so that his grave site doesn’t become a place of worship for republicans.
Saving this in case I ever have trouble getting an erection later
I believe the terms of bonds in Georgia are that 10% must be posted by the defendant. This is the absolute least of his own money he could put up and not have to sit in jail until trial.
I see a lot of people trying to write this off like it’s some sort of business strategy and he is just playing with debt like always.
This isn’t a business. This is a criminal proceeding and there are very different rules about bail bonds vs other loans.
I’m not saying to believe he is broke but I think there is more going on here than what others are trying to write off by saying “this is par for the course”.
Personally? I think he had all his resources tied up and isn’t very liquid right now. So he may have the money but if it’s tied up in a property you can’t just reclaim that instantly. It’s the same problem Guliani is having right now. It’s not easy or fast to sell a 6 million dollar house 😅
Definitely makes sense to do this via a loan so your cash isn’t tied up. I would like to know if there’s any reason to use bail bondsman over some other method.
Less paper work since the bondsman handles it. it’s also cheaper but you don’t get the money back when the court case is over. Which you do when you pay bail directly. This is how bail bondsman make money. You pay them 10%-20% they pay off bail and then they get that bail money back or they simply give the judge a guarantee. They will also hound your ass if you fail to show in court and send a bounty hunter to find you. Since if the defendant fails to show up the bond will not be refunded.
The bail bondsman who gave him that loan is the biggest sucker in the whole MAGA kingdom. That $180,000 will never be seen again.
Edit: Nevermind, I didn’t understand how bail works.
That’s not how bail bonds works. It’s not a loan. You pay the bondsman 10%. Then the bondsman guarantees that the defendant will show up to his court dates. If the defendant fails to show up the bondsman has to pay the court the entire amount. Bondsman often use bounty hunters to pick up defendants who haven’t shown up.
A bail bondsman has more legal options for going after someone than any other type of loan officer, including the use of bounty hunters.
Bail bondsmen are notoriously corrupt, so this tracks
he doesn’t intend to pay any of it back.
The entire job of Bail bondsmen is to know how to get people to pay back, including breaking legs
Even if it blew up in their face, I could see a non-sycophant reason for supplying Trump a bond, potentially with sweetheart terms: it would be the ultimate marketing coup within the industry. “We bailed out the highest profile defendant in American history, sure we can help you with your sixth DUI of the week!”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Donald Trump reportedly used a bail bondsman after being arrested at Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, paying $20,000 of his bond set at $200,000 and taking out a loan for the rest of it.
Trump voluntarily turned himself in at the Georgia jail where he was booked on 13 felony counts linked to his alleged efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election in the state.
Trump and 18 co-defendants, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, are accused of conspiring together in the same election plot, according to the indictment released earlier this month.
“It’s also unusual for a billionaire to post a bond in cash as he did in the E. Jean Carroll’s case instead of getting a commercial insurance company to do it for him, and he couldn’t do it there,” Rubin said.
Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that Trump’s campaign finances were strained as the former president was dedicating tens of millions of dollars towards his legal defense.
On his campaign website, Trump asks his supporters for a “contribution to evict Crooked Joe Biden from the White House and SAVE AMERICA.”
The original article contains 661 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I read he’s paying about 2 million a month for legal fees. He only just stopped campaigning recently, too. I wouldn’t say he’s broke so soon.
Why not. My understanding is none of his businesses are profitable. His grifting is meant to be to pay back debts. None of his actions have ever spelled out liquid rich person. Lawyers and others now want to be paid in advance as he is known to not pay debts.
Liquid rich person - “Drink the rich!”
ITT: So, so many people not understanding bail, or bail bondsmen.
Mind expand a bit on that, please, then?
Bail is essentially the court saying “give us this money, and when you show up for court you will get that money back.”
A bail bondsmen takes 10% as payment, giving the court the bail money. They will go so far as to hire bounty hunters to hunt you down, making sure you show up to court. When the court gives back the bail, they get to keep both the bail money (obviously) but also the 10% payment.
There’s no loan involved, the bail is more of a hold, and the bond is more of a payment. Trump isn’t paying less, he is literally paying a 10% bond to not have the full bail held. (Though it could be argued that the $180k could be used to make back the $20k but that’s a different discussion.) The bondsman has already received payment, there’s no concern of non payment by Trump.
That’s how it’s supposed to work, but in many counties the bondsman doesn’t actually front any cash to the court, and they don’t get charged if the suspect runs. They operate as a sort of slush fund for the owners, the officials, and the cops.
So these companies are often just another way to siphon money from people accused of a crime.
Super shady stuff.
His private jet (a Boeing 757) that flew him from Palm Beach to Atlanta for his booking…costs $15k to $18k per hour to operate, and it’s a 2-hour flight each way (not counting warmup, taxi, and idle time waiting to takeoff). He basically dropped $60k+ for that flight. It doesn’t make sense that he’d need the services of a bail bondsman when he’s dropping $60k for plane rides, or maybe his campaign funds are paying to operate that jet - I wouldn’t be surprised.
Someone else is paying it…?
