New York court to weigh Trump appeal of nearly $500M civil fraud ruling

[Geee]

Washington Examiner

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump will head to Manhattan on Thursday as they seek to undo a civil fraud judgment that could significantly affect the former president’s real estate empire and cost him close to $500 million. 

In a courtroom just blocks away from the Flatiron Building, an intermediate-level state appeals court will hear arguments Thursday at noon. Trump has given no indication that he plans to attend.

The case centers on accusations that Trump inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to secure loans and make deals for the betterment of the Trump Organization. The state’s Democratic attorney general accused Trump and his associates of overvaluing assets, including his golf courses, hotels, and Trump Tower penthouse. Trump’s legal team is seeking to overturn Judge Arthur Engoron’s judgment, calling it “egregious” and arguing it should be reversed.

 

Amid Trump’s four criminal cases, which carry the risk of years in prison, the former president also faces penalties in civil defamation cases brought by former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll after he lost two separate civil trials, resulting in him currently owing a total of more than $563 million in combined penalties with interest. For example, Trump owes $24 million more today than when the judgment first came down due to the interest accrued already at a 9% interest rate.

Even if Trump wins the election, legal experts say his return to the White House could be marred by a split screen of authorities collecting his assets should he lose his bid to undo Engoron’s ruling or lower the total amount.

[Geee]

Judges press New York AG as Trump appeals his $454M fraud judgment

Seven months after a trial judge fined Donald Trump $454 million for business frauds that the judge said "shock the conscience," a New York appeals court appeared skeptical Thursday of some of the arguments underpinning the New York attorney general's case against the former president.

A panel of five judges at New York's Appellate Division, First Department heard Trump's appeal and peppered both sides with concerns about the case -- appearing to question some of the key elements of the state's case, including the application of a consumer fraud statute, the justification for the financial penalty prosecutors sought, and the private nature of the transactions in question, mirroring well-worn defense arguments that failed during the case's lengthy trial this year.

[Geee]

Is Trump About to Clinch a Win as His Legal Team Appeals Laughable Civil Fraud Case?

It’s possibly one of the most laughable civil fraud cases, one of the many legal attacks the Left launched against Donald Trump to prevent him from becoming president again—all of which have failed. It never resonated with voters; many see this as a politically motivated circus. The only folks who think any of it matters are the usual Trump-deranged left-wing clowns who need to be straight-jacketed at this point. This case involved the Trump Organization supposedly defrauding banking institutions, which led to a $464 million judgment by a biased judge. If it’s upheld, Trump’s net worth and business activities will take a massive hit; he and his sons can’t operate in the Empire State for three years. 

[Geee]

NY Judges Scrutinize ‘Troubling’ $450 Million Penalty In Trump Fraud Case: ‘No One Lost Any Money’

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.”

[Geee]

Appeals Court May Overturn or Reduce Donald Trump's Massive $478 Million Civil Fraud Judgment

Just from reading the transcript, I would say the chances are better than 50-50 for the court to either substantially reduce the judgment or toss the entire case.

[Geee]

Letitia James may be winning lawfare but losing the war - Jonathan Turley

In an age of lawfare, New York Attorney General Letitia James has always embraced the total war option. Her very appeal has been her willingness to use any means against political opponents.

James first ran for her office by pledging to bag Donald Trump on something, anything. She did not specify the violation, only that she would deliver the ultimate trophy kill for Democratic voters. James follows the view of what Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz said about war, law is merely politics “by other means.”

 

Yet, the political success of James in weaponizing her office has been in stark contrast with her legal setbacks in courts.

James earlier sought to use her office to disband the National Rifle Association, the most powerful gun rights organization in the country, due to self-dealing and corruption of executives. James notably did not target liberal groups accused of similar violations. The ridiculous effort to disband the NRA collapsed in court.

It did not matter. James knew that such efforts were performative and that New York voters did not care if such attacks failed. She will continue to win the lawfare battles, even if she loses the war.

This week, two of James’s best-known campaigns were struggling in court.

James is best known for her fraud case against Trump, in which she secured a $464 million fine and a ban on Trump from the New York real estate business for three years. That penalty, which has now risen to $489 million with interest, was in a case where no one had lost a dime due to the alleged inaccurate property valuations in bank loans secured by the Trump organization. Not only where the banks fully paid on the loans and made considerable profits, but they wanted to make additional loans to the Trump organization.

In appellate arguments this week, James’s office faced openly skeptical justices who raised the very arguments that some of us have made for years about the ludicrous fine imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron.

[Geee]

Appeals court judges shine light on Tish James’ monstrously stretched case against Trump - Andrew McCarthy

Consumer protection law is designed to protect the public from unscrupulous business schemes. It was never intended to make state bureaucrats the arbiter of every transaction between private parties, much less sophisticated financial actors.

That was the distinct message that arose out of last week’s appeals court hearing in state Attorney General Letitia James’ unabashedly politicized civil fraud case against Donald Trump.

As readers will recall, Judge Arthur Engoron, an elected Democratic hack in a robe, ordered the former president to pay nearly half a billion dollars in fraud damages … despite the total absence of fraud victims.

James may edge out her fellow progressive Democratic Trump tormentor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, for what we might call the Lavrentiy Beria Award — named for Stalin’s most notorious Soviet secret police chief, who coined the phrase, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”

Having campaigned for office promising that, if elected, she would find a way to wield her powers against the Democrats’ archnemesis, James did the unprecedented: She invoked against Trump a consumer protection statute — Executive Law §63(12) — enacted to protect the public from “persistent fraud” practices.

 

The legislature’s intention was to empower the attorney general to take action against scammers who broadly defraud the public but don’t harm any single consumer badly enough that it would be worth the prohibitive expense of bringing an individual lawsuit

 

Even in its intended application, the law is vague: The AG may sue even if the alleged scheme is not actionably criminal, as long as she deems it somehow deceptive.

But §63(12) was never meant to turn the AG into what James aspires to be: the uber-regulator of all business conducted in the Empire State.

In particular, it was not intended to let the state government intrude into business transactions between financial professionals that involve no criminal activity.

[Valin]

1 hour ago, Geee said:

Appeals court judges shine light on Tish James’ monstrously stretched case against Trump - Andrew McCarthy

Consumer protection law is designed to protect the public from unscrupulous business schemes. It was never intended to make state bureaucrats the arbiter of every transaction between private parties, much less sophisticated financial actors.

That was the distinct message that arose out of last week’s appeals court hearing in state Attorney General Letitia James’ unabashedly politicized civil fraud case against Donald Trump.

The Banks Trump borrowed from were less sophisticated financial actors? 😲