How did Trump pay his $175m fraud bond – and who helped him?

On Easter Monday, Mr Trump finally posted the $175m bond – preventing Ms James from starting to seize his assets. The former president secured the bond through the Knight Specialty Insurance Company. "As promised, president Trump has posted bond," the former president's attorney Alina Habba told ABC News in a statement. "He looks forward to vindicating his rights on appeal and overturning this unjust verdict."

Knight Specialty is owned by California businessman Don Hankey, whom MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin reports is known as "the king of subprime car loans", specialising in lending to automobile buyers with poor credit ratings at high rates of interest. "Hankey repossesses around 250 cars every day and his debt collectors have been known to spoof their caller ID so it appears that they are calling from the local pizzeria," Forbes wrote of him in 2015.

Mr Hankey was placed 128th on Forbes's 400 List in 2023 and 317th on its Billionaire's roster for the same year. He is also a prolific Republican donor and the largest shareholder in Axos Bank, which was founded in San Diego in 2000 under the name Bank of Internet USA. The bank refinanced loans on Mr Trump's Trump Tower complex in Manhattan and his Doral golf resort in Miami, Florida, in 2022, worth $100m and $125m respectively. Those loans are due for repayment by 2032.

Axos Banks was also involved in the $375m sale of the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC that same year.