JUDGE ENGORON’S RETRIBUTION. Former President Donald Trump has just a few weeks to find a way to pay, or guarantee that he will pay, the $355 million fine that a New York judge imposed on him in the lawsuit brought by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James. The suit was the culmination of James’s campaign to bring financial ruin on the former president, and it might succeed. Unless it is reduced on appeal, the actual amount Trump will owe, including interest, could top $450 million.

That’s insane, of course. Even assuming that the case proved Trump overstated the values of some of his properties for the purpose of getting lower interest rates on real estate loans, the other things that the case revealed — that this was an example of selective prosecution, that there were no victims, that the loans were paid back in a “timely and total” fashion, that the lending institutions made the loans based not on Trump’s representations but on their own research, and that some of those institutions were eager to do business with Trump again — all that meant that a far smaller penalty, perhaps a tiny fraction of what Judge Arthur Engoron imposed, would be appropriate.