On March 8, former President Donald Trump posted a $91.6 million bond sufficient to cover the money he owes to E. Jean Carroll in a defamation lawsuit while he appeals the jury’s verdict.
A jury ordered Trump in January 2024 to pay $83.3 million in damages for defaming Carroll after she accused the former president of sexually assaulting her.
The bond delays payment of that award until the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can rule on Trump’s legal challenge, the AP reported. Appeal bonds typically cover not only the underlying judgment, but also costs and interests during the appeal, the American Bar Association explains.
Much of Trump’s net worth is tied up in properties and investments, which may be why some people wondered how he had enough cash on hand to post the appeal bond amid his other legal challenges. Several posts claim a Russian company backed the bond.
“The company that put up Trump's bond, Chubb, is a RUSSIAN COMPANY based in MOSCOW. Let. That. Sink. In,” one person wrote in a post shared hundreds of times on X.
One of the posters also claimed that while Trump was president, he nominated the same company’s CEO to serve on a White House advisory committee.
Here’s what we can VERIFY about the company that backed Trump’s appeal bond in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.
THE SOURCES
QUESTION #1
Did Trump secure his bond from a Russian company?
THE ANSWER
Trump did not secure his bond from a Russian company in the E. Jean Carroll case.
Federal Insurance Company, a subsidiary of the global insurance company Chubb, guaranteed Trump’s $91.6 million appeal bond, court records show. But neither Federal Insurance Co. nor Chubb are Russian companies.
Federal Insurance Co. is based in Indiana. The court records for Trump’s bond also show addresses for the company’s claims center in Virginia and a New Jersey office.
Chubb isn’t based in Russia, either, as the posts claim. The company is based in Zurich, Switzerland, according to a 10-K form filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Chubb also has executive offices in the U.S., United Kingdom, France and Singapore, but not Russia, according to its website.
Though Chubb is not a Russian company, it does business in the country through a few subsidiaries, according to its website. But a spokesperson for the company told VERIFY it separated itself from those businesses after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The net value of Chubb’s Russian operations was approximately $40 million before the invasion, according to the spokesperson.
Chubb no longer manages or receives revenue from its Russian businesses following the country’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the company spokesperson said. The Russian businesses also stopped writing new insurance policies and renewing others, according to the spokesperson.
“Following the invasion, Chubb wrote off the entire value of its interests in these entities, ceased exercising management control of the Russian businesses, and disconnected them from all Chubb systems,” the spokesperson said. “In addition, the Russia businesses ceased writing new or renewal insurance policies. Chubb receives no revenue from those businesses, which were de-consolidated from the company’s financial statements filed with the SEC.”
QUESTION #2
Did Trump appoint Chubb CEO Evan G. Greenberg to serve on a White House trade advisory committee when he was president?
THE ANSWER
Trump did appoint Chubb CEO Evan Greeberg to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN) in 2018, an archived announcement from the White House shows.
The ACTPN is a “volunteer advisory committee that provides advice to the United States Trade Representative,” the federal government says.
Greenberg served on the committee “under both the Trump and Biden administrations until March 2023,” the Chubb spokesperson told VERIFY.
VERIFY reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
In a recent letter to customers, investors and brokers obtained by media outlets such as CNBC and The Hill, Greenberg defended the decision for one of Chubb’s subsidiaries to guarantee Trump’s $91.6 million bond.
Greenberg said in the letter, which was shared publicly by The Hill reporter Zach Schonfeld, that “when Chubb provides an appeal bond it has nothing to do with the underlying merits or with favoring any of the parties in the case.”
“As the surety, we don’t take sides, it would be wrong for us to do so and we are in no way supporting the defendant,” Greenberg wrote in part. “We are supporting and are part of the justice system plumbing included in this case.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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