Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“Donald Trump must pay $354.9 million in penalties for fraudulently overstating his net worth to dupe lenders, a New York judge ruled on Friday… Justice Arthur Engoron, in a sharply worded decision issued after a contentious three-month trial in Manhattan, also banned Trump, who is running to regain the presidency this year, from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years…
“The lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Trump and his family businesses of overstating his net worth by as much [as] $3.6 billion a year over a decade to fool bankers into giving him better loan terms… Engoron, who decided the case without a jury, also barred Trump and his companies named in the suit from applying for loans from any financial institution chartered in New York for three years.” Reuters
The right is critical of the ruling, arguing that the fine is disproportionate.
“As even the trial made clear, no one lost any money in the deals under scrutiny in the case. At all. The lenders got repaid on time after having done their own due diligence on property valuation; no bank is just going to take a borrower's word for the value of the collateral…
“Even normal homeowners have to get an independent appraisal before selling or buying a house that will require a mortgage. The banks in this case all expressed eagerness to do more business with Trump, in fact…
“This judgment flies in the face of the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution… The Eighth Amendment states simply and clearly: ‘Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.’ How else can one view a $355 million judgment for fraud in which no one was defrauded? How else can one view a bond demand for $455 million just to ask the appellate court to address these and other myriad issues from the trial?”
Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
“The term fraud is used loosely since no one was defrauded, an element of a cause of action under common law fraud, and no one was harmed, also an element, and there was no proof of reliance, another element. This is fraud ‘in the air,’ as the saying goes: no harm by no one against no one for no loss by anyone. No one testified that they lost a penny from the purported fraud, or that they would not have wanted to deal with Trump as a customer…
“Previously, the same judge ordered dissolution of Trump’s businesses in the state, under the supervision of a receiver. That order was stayed by the appellate court pending appeal. Following the order of dissolution, The Associated Press reviewed nearly 150 reported cases under the statute used to punish Trump and stated ‘that nearly every previous time a company was taken away, victims and losses were key factors. Customers had lost money or brought defective products or never received services ordered, leaving them cheated and angry.’”
Arthur Fergenson, Fox News
“The damages against Trump [are] greater than the gross national product of some countries, including Micronesia… and should shock the conscience of any judge on appeal… You do not have to feel sorry or even sympathetic for Trump to see this award as obscene. The appeal will test the New York legal system to see if other judges can do what Judge Engoron found so difficult: set aside their feelings about Trump.”
Jonathan Turley, The Hill
“Will every other large New York real estate company now find [their business] records similarly dissected for improprieties? Of course not. Any reasonable person can see James is driven by a fierce animosity towards the Trumps. She has said that she regards Trump as an ‘illegitimate president’ and appears to believe that her main job is pursuing him and other select targets, not overseeing the application of the law in New York.”
Freddy Gray, Spectator World
The left applauds the ruling, arguing that Trump must be held to account.
The left applauds the ruling, arguing that Trump must be held to account.
“Trump was caught repeatedly lying in his financial statements and putting forth witnesses who the judge found knowingly lied for Trump. Trump’s financial statements showed an office building known as 40 Wall Street was 72 stories when it was only 63, inventing $50 million of bogus value, and showed $64 million of net operating income when it was almost $9 million in the red…
“Last November, Engoron named retired Judge Barbara Jones to oversee the Trump Organization as a court-appointed monitor. Yet even after that, Engoron wrote, improper financial movements continued. What better proof of brazen lawlessness than Trump engaging in improper money movements under the nose of the court-appointed monitor?…
“The judge’s opinion is a sequel to Trump’s 1987 autobiography, The Art of The Deal, in which he brags about cheating at golf, deceiving business partners, and thumbing his nose at the law. That book is a guide not just to Trump’s megalomaniacal ego but to how he serially ripped off unsuspecting people and then moved on to the next victim. This strategy worked until Trump became president, which bathed him in the unwanted glare of the sunlight that Justice Louis Brandeis called ‘the best disinfectant.’”
David Cay Johnston, New Republic
“[The judge] marveled at the ex-president’s audacity in flouting business ethics in inflating the values of his real estate and then his refusal to accept the truth of his actions when confronted with the evidence. ‘Defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. Instead, they adopt a ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ posture that the evidence belies,’ he wrote. Engoron explained that such a crushing verdict was necessary to account for Trump’s ill-gotten gains — because he believes they will continue in the absence of a painful price.”
Stephen Collinson, CNN
“The nearly $355 million disgorgement was, as the law requires, based on the Trump Organization’s ill-gotten gains, including reduced interest rates on loans and profits from two deals that would not have occurred without Trump having lied…
“This judgment, along with the Carroll verdicts before it, could hurt Trump’s political brand. He rode to the 2016 nomination and eventually the White House as a rich, successful businessman who wins, but he is now being exposed as a fraud who keeps losing…
“Three independent and objective fact-finders—two juries and a judge—have ruled against Trump in the three cases that have gone to trial: the recent Carroll defamation suit, the earlier 2023 case in which a jury found Trump sexually abused Carroll, and the New York civil fraud case. Those verdicts are based on the evidence and the law in a courtroom where, unlike a political rally, facts matter but conspiracy theories and baseless claims do not.”
Norman L. Eisen, Andrew Warren, and Jacob Kovacs-Goodman, Slate
