Donald Trump reduced to using a bail bondsman in Fulton County arrest

Donald Trump is always the first to tell you that he’s supposedly a billionaire. He’s even used fake aliases in the past to con news outlets into overstating his worth. But when you compare his assets to his massive debts, does he really have any net worth at all?

To that end, as part of Trump’s arrest today in Fulton County, he faced a $200,000 bond. When someone is a billionaire, it doesn’t mean they have a billion dollars cash sitting around. Much of a billionaire’s net worth is typically tied up in assets and investments. But any billionaire should easily have way more than $200,000 sitting in a checking or savings account, and could thus simply write a check. After all, it’s just a matter of moving money around. Once you show up for your trial, you get the money back anyway.

Instead, the New York Times says that Trump is using a bail bondsman service to post his bond in Fulton County today. The way this works is that Trump puts up 10% of his own money, or $20,000 out of pocket, in order to get the bond service to cover his $200,000.

You might think this is simply Trump being cheap, rather than broke. But here’s the thing. By doing it this way, Trump doesn’t get the 10% back in the end. He’s losing the $20,000 permanently, just so he can avoid putting up $200,000 temporarily. This strongly suggests that he doesn’t have $200,000 lying around to spare.

We’ll see how this all shakes out. New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil probe into the Trump Organization, once it gets to trial and verdict, should end up going a long way to exposing Donald Trump’s actual financial situation. But for now you sure do have to wonder why Trump appears to be throwing away $20,000 just to avoid temporarily tying up $200,000. Just how dire is this guy’s financial situation getting?