By Geller Report | Created at 2024-09-28 17:30:40 | Updated at 2024-09-30 05:20:10
1 day ago
The prosecution was a politically motivated witch trial, a gross miscarriage of justice.Short of correcting that, tossing the obscene judgement is at least a start.
Now, counter-lawfare. New York appeals court judges consider throwing out the insane, pushing-$500-million Letitia James/Judge Engoron penalty against Donald Trump. https://t.co/Nrqdg6V5ls
— Byron York (@ByronYork) September 28, 2024
Remember Judge Engoron? NY attorney general Letitia James' bid to bankrupt Trump? A penalty approaching $500 million? Now, an appeals court has the chance to undo some of the worst damage done by the Democrats' lawfare campaign. https://t.co/Nrqdg6V5ls
— Byron York (@ByronYork) September 27, 2024
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NY Judges Scrutinize ‘Troubling’ $450 Million Penalty In Trump Fraud Case: ‘No One Lost Any Money’
By: Brianna Lyman, The Federalist, September 27, 2024
A New York appellate court is raising questions regarding the penalty and the justification under which AG Letitia James brought the case.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ordered in February former President Donald Trump to pay an approximate $450 million penalty in a civil fraud case in which there were no victims. Now, a New York appellate court is raising questions regarding the “troubling” penalty and Attorney General Letitia James’ justification for bringing the case in the first place.
James accused Trump of inflating his personal wealth to get better loan terms. Trump, for example, valued his Mar-a-Lago estate at between $427 million and $612 million, Forbes reported. Engoron, however, cited a one-off local Palm Beach County appraiser who valued the property as low as $18 million. Some experts have reportedly valued the sprawling property in the hundreds of millions.
As my colleague Mark Hemingway explained earlier this year, “Trump took out loans over several years, as real estate moguls are wont to do. For him to get approved for those loans, the banks did their own due diligence about Trump’s finances and ability to pay back the loans and decided to give them to him. Trump paid back the loans, and everyone made money.”
Enogoron ultimately ordered Trump to pay $354 million plus an additional $100 million in interest. Trump posted a $175 million bond in April and appealed the ruling.
[READ NEXT: Judge Engoron’s Inflation Of Trump’s ‘Ill-Gotten Gains’ Is The Real Financial Fraud]
Trump’s team argued on Thursday before the New York Appellate Division, First Judicial Department that the case was a “clear-cut violation of the statute of limitations,” and that the statute used to bring charges against the former president ultimately did not justify the action taken.
Throughout the hearing, some of the justices appeared receptive to Trump’s team’s claims regarding the case.
Justice Llinét Rosado questioned how the penalty was calculated. Justice Peter Moulton also asked Vale about the “troubling” penalty.
“The immense penalty in this case is troubling,” Moulton said. “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by the Supreme Court to the harm that was caused here where parties left these transactions happy … ?”
Vale acknowledged the penalty was large but argued “it’s a large number,” in part, “because there was a lot of fraud and illegality.”
Justice David Friedman earlier in the hearing asked Vale whether James had brought any other cases under the same law and circumstances as she brought charges against Trump. He also later contended to Vale that the cited precedence “hardly seems [to] justif[y] bringing an action to protect Deutsche Bank against President Trump, which is what you have here.”
“You’ve got two really sophisticated parties in which no one lost any money, and that was the point of my initial question,” he continued, before claiming “every case” cited as justification instead involved “damage to consumers, damage to the marketplace, [or] a scheme to get unsophisticated consumers to take out home loans.”
Vale argued state statute does not require this, and that “the statute is written broadly because the legislature wants the Attorney General to go in and stop fraud and illegality.”
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