Former President Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York ended on Friday with a bang. In a 92-page decision, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay a massive $355 million fine, plus more than $98 million in prejudgment interest. Among the other sanctions outlined in Engoron’s extraordinary ruling, Trump is prohibited from serving as an officer or director of any business in the state for three years.
How inappropriate was this case and the penalty that followed? George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley noted that “[e]ven the New York Times agreed that it could not find a single case in history where this statute was used against an individual or a company that did not commit a criminal offense, go bankrupt, or leave financial victims.”
Trump was found liable for overstating the values of his assets on bank loan applications, which, as it turns out, is a common practice among commercial real estate developers. Considering that New York City is the financial capital of the world, the city’s bankers are among the most sophisticated and savvy on the planet. They expect developers to inflate property valuations and simply adjust them down to more realistic levels before making their lending decisions. According to Turley, during the trial, “witnesses [loan officers] testified that they wanted to do more business with Trump, who was described as a ‘whale’ client with high yield business opportunities.”
Moreover, Turley explained that under New York law, “Trump cannot appeal this ruling without depositing the full amount in a court account.” Even for Trump, it will be difficult to come up with nearly half a billion dollars in 30 days.
The prosecutor who brought this case, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, an elected Democrat, made it clear during her campaign that she would use the law to take down Trump. “This illegitimate president [Trump] — I look forward to going into the office of the attorney general every day, suing him, and then going home,” she said. She kept her word. James charged Trump with violating a state anti-fraud law that is “typically used to protect consumers. Unlike many similar cases, this one did not involve ordinary people losing lots of money,” according to Reuters.
In fact, no one was defrauded. All of the loans were fully repaid. Yet a New York judge concluded that Trump, unlike the thousands of others who routinely do the same thing, should face consequences. And that his wildly exorbitant penalty should be way out of proportion to his offense.
Needless to say, James was delighted with the outcome. And exuberant liberal pundits spent the weekend repeating all of the same talking points: “Trump deserved it. He’s been playing fast and loose for his entire life. He is not above the law.”
To a reasonable person, however, the ruling looks like a political hit job, just the latest blow in the Democrats’ relentless lawfare campaign against Trump.
To say the least, this judgment sent a distinct chill through the New York business community. If it wasn’t a political hit job as Democrats claim, then New York is a pretty dangerous place to do business, and business owners ought to get out of Dodge quickly before it happens to them.
Many businesses, tired of high taxes, rising crime rates, and the increasingly hostile business environment, have already fled the state. No one knows this better than New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul. During a Saturday interview with billionaire businessman and radio talk show host John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM, Hochul sought to reassure business owners that it’s safe to do business in the state. Her remarks actually made the case that Trump was targeted because, well, he was Trump.
She said: “I think that this is really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance that the law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are business people have nothing to worry about because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior.”
Well, which is it, governor? Either Trump was targeted for political reasons, or every New York developer who has ever overstated the value of a property on a loan application is now at risk of being bankrupted by a confiscatory fine — unless, of course, that person is loyal to the Democratic regime.
Is that the criteria that state officials use to decide who gets hit with an obscene fine in a “fraudulent” transaction in which there is no victim and who gets a pass?
Once again, Democrats have weaponized the law against Trump, and their base is celebrating. But just as Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis’s insistence on taking a mugshot of Trump last August backfired spectacularly, they will come to regret this latest travesty of justice. They have shown independent voters, whose votes are so crucial in close elections, that they are willing to cross any line for political revenge.
The New York Post editorial board summed it all up in a Friday op-ed: “Democratic elites will chuckle into their martinis this weekend at the verdict, but your victory is pyrrhic. You’ve made Donald Trump a political martyr.”
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Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner, Power Line, and AFNN, and she is a fellow at the Heritage Foundation Academy. She is a past contributor to RedState, Newsmax, the Western Journal, and Bongino.com. Her articles have appeared on RealClearPolitics, MSN, the Federalist, and many other sites. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
