Trump fraud bond documents rejected forcing him to come clean about finances: Live

Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton spoke with Ben Meiselas of MeidasTouch about the threat the ex-commander-in-chief represents should he be re-elected — principally concerning the future of Nato and the problem of trusting him with nuclear weapons.

Bolton suggests one potential strategy for preventing a withdrawal from the North Atlantic military alliance would be to distract Trump because he has such a short attention span!

He also hit out at the former president over his revisionist narrative surrounding the Capitol riot.

Speaking of Truth Social, two investors connected to an insider trading scheme regarding the merger of Digital World Acquisition Corporation with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) pleaded guilty to securities fraud in connection to the scheme yesterday.

Brothers Michael and Gerald Shvartsman each plead guilty to one count of securities fraud in New York City.

Their pleas come approximately 10 months after they were arrested and charged with trading in securities of Digital World based on material, non-public information about its merger with TMTG.

Ariana Baio reports.

Despite recovering some of Monday’s dramatic plunge in its share price on Tuesday, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) saw those gains slide again on Wednesday as it dropped 5.41 per cent during trading.

It closed the day at $48.81 per share.

Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that the whole venture was close to going under in 2022 before it was propped up by emergency loans, at least two of which apear to have come from a Russian-American businessman under criminal investigation, according to a report.

Here’s more on that.

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 has recently spoken by phone with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, The New York Times reports.

The newspaper states that it is not known precisely what the Republican presidential candidate discussed with the prince – his country’s de facto leader, commonly referred to simply as “MBS” – or whether this was their first exchange since the former president left the White House in January 2021.

The Independent has reached out to Trump’s campaign team for more details about the reported conversation with His Majesty.

During his tenure as president, Trump enjoyed warm relations with Saudi Arabia and the country was the first he visited after taking office in 2017, a trip memorable for the American joining in a ceremonial sword dance and going viral after placing his hands on a mysterious glowing orb at an exhibition centre in the company of King Salman and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sissi.

He also referred to MBS as “a friend of mine” after meeting him again at a G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, in June 2019, hailing him as “a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of [the] opening of 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.

Ariana Baio has more.