Former President Donald Trump made clear Tuesday he would have to take extraordinary measures to pay a $464 million bond due next week in his New York civil fraud case, suggesting that he’d need to sell some of properties at “fire sale” prices.

Trump’s comments came in a hyper-critical Truth Social post against New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who ruled against the former president in his fraud case last month. The former president is asking an appeals court to delay posting the bond until his appeal of the case is over, as a surprising number of pundits on both the Left and the Right have suggested what Trump is going through is “unfair.”

Trump hammers on ‘ridiculous decision’

“Judge Engoron actually wants me to put up Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for the Right to Appeal his ridiculous decision. In other words, he is trying to take my Appellate Rights away from me,” Trump wrote in a post Tuesday morning. “Nobody has ever heard of anything like this before.”

“I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone. Does that make sense? WITCH HUNT. ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” Trump added.

Trump’s lawyer wrote in a filing on Monday that securing a bond to pay the $454 million judgement by the deadline next week is a “practical impossibility.”

Left and Right find rare agreement on unfairness

Meanwhile, Trump has gained some unlikely sympathy from even left-wing pundits including Cenk Uygur, a former presidential candidate and co-host of The Young Turks, who described Trump’s dilemma as “draconian.”

“In terms of what’s right and fair, we can’t have one set of rules for Trump and another set of rules for everyone else. And to me, putting up all the cash up front before you appeal the case seems draconian for everyone, not just Trump,” Uygur said during his online show on Monday.

“But what if he wins the appeal? So you made him sell all of his properties to get the collateral, but then he can’t buy them back … so when his lawyer says ‘irreparable harm,’ in this case, financially speaking, it would be irreparable harm,” Uygur added.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University Law School professor who has often questioned Engoron’s decisions in court, said, “Many people look at this as a type of mob justice” during a Fox News interview on Tuesday.

No bond by Monday could commence ‘fire sale’

Last month, Engoron ordered Trump to pay nearly $355 million in penalties, plus interest, in the civil fraud case that dealt a remarkable blow to his family business empire, the Trump Organization. Trump’s comments come after his attorneys said Monday that he cannot secure the full $464 million bond due next Monday.

Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the civil suit against the Trump Organization, has said her office is “prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers.”

“And yes, I look at 40 Wall St. each and every day,” James said, referring to the former president’s prized Trump Building in New York City.

If Trump does not post a bond by Monday, he can still appeal the decision. But the verdict could be enforced immediately starting on Monday meaning James could begin seizing his New York assets.

A panel of appeals court judges will decide by March 25 whether the multi-million judgment against Trump can be paused while he appeals.

Professor Will Thomas from the University of Michigan Ross Business School told the BBC he thinks it’s possible that Trump will receive at least some temporary relief.

“I think it is very likely that he will get some kind of stay unless they find some other stopgap option,” Thomas said.

Art of the deal or just broke?

Attorney Andrew Lieb of Lieb at Law told the Washington Examiner that despite appearances of unfairness against Trump, “this is just the system.”

“You could say the case is about Trump you could say the loss is about Trump. You can’t say the fact that he has to post a bond is about Trump because everyone has to post the bond,” Lieb said.

Trump asked the appeals court to pause the $454 million judgment against him last month or be willing to accept a bond of only $100 million. While Trump’s preferred bond amount is not directly indicative of the amount of cash he has on hand, Lieb said it could be a clue as to the former president’s broader strategy.

“So the only logical reason that he’s doing this is number one, it is a strategy to try and reduce the dollar amount,” Lieb said. “Or number two, because he really doesn’t have the money.”

Trump’s net worth is derived mainly from the value of his real estate, which bond companies rarely accept as collateral. The former president has just north of $350 million in cash on hand, short of what he needs, according to a New York Times analysis.

Lieb said it doesn’t make sense that Trump attorneys say he can’t pay the bond, citing the sheer high-dollar amounts at which he estimated his properties were valued, which James succeeded in convincing the judge were fraudulent claims.

For example, Trump valued Mar-a-Lago at between $426.5 million and $612 million, an overvaluation of at least 2,300%, compared to the assessor’s appraisal, Engoron wrote in his ruling. Critics have questioned the valuation of Mar-a-Lago that Engoron cited in his ruling, however.

Lieb suggested that if Trump is truthful about his belief that his Florida estate is worth that much, then he sees “no reason why any lender in America wouldn’t give him $500 million as a refinance” that he can use to pay off his bond.

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The attorney said such a strategy could come with the risk of Trump committing perjury, suggesting his counsel’s statement that he doesn’t have the money could be construed as an admission that his numbers were inflated, which would not be a favorable admission when seeking to overturn Engoron’s holding on appeal.

“It would not shock me in the slightest if he’s doing this just to lower the amount to $200 million, and then he has that ready to go,” Lieb said.