Earlier today AverageOldGuy posted the idea that possibly Russian money was behind Trump's bond.

[Ocelot II]

7. There is much misunderstanding about how an appeal bond works. First, it's not a loan at all, it's insurance.

This is a completely normal transaction that takes place in virtually all appeals, especially from large verdicts (in commercial litigation, where this most often happens, the verdicts can be much larger than this one). The insurance company provides a bond that assures that the winning party in a lawsuit will get the funds they were awarded if the other party's appeal fails. If a bond is not provided the winning party can execute on the judgment immediately, but most people don't want to do that because it's a slow, expensive process with no assurance of success - the losing defendant can hide assets, file bankruptcy, take other measures to avoid paying. An appeal bond avoids all of this, and also removes the incentive for the losing party to appeal just for the purpose of delay.

The insurer in this case is a subsidiary of a huge multinational corporation, the Chubb Group, one of the largest publicly-traded insurers in the world. it is the umbrella for insurance companies in 55 countries, and it is publicly traded so you can look up their SEC 10K form showing their financials. Thirty of its companies are US corporations. One of these, the Federal Insurance Co., issued the bond. It ensures that E. Jean Carroll will be paid immediately if (when) she wins the appeal. It would have charged a premium in a percentage corresponding to the risk, and in most cases these bonds also require collateral in the full amount of the verdict plus interest. They would not have issued the bond (which also has to be approved by the court) if they felt there was a significant risk of loss. This is the business they are in; they know how to evaluate these risks; they do it all the time. This is not an unusual situation. It's perfectly normal.

And I can't for the life of me figure out why people have their panties in a wad over this, since it benefits Carroll, not Trump. Why do so many of you want her to have to chase him for the money he owes instead of making him follow the normal, accepted procedure of obtaining an appeal bond?

Also, the money isn't coming from Russia. The Chubb group has a single (probably fairly small) separate subsidiary in Russia, among the other 54 countries where there are subsidiaries. The company that issued Trump's bond is a US company based in New Jersey. It doesn't do business in Russia. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and not everything is a Russian conspiracy.