We all knew it would be overturned on appeal. It had to be overturned on appeal. But still. It feels pretty good. Unless your name is Letitia James.
“Plainly,” wrote Judge David Friedman, “her ultimate goal was not ‘market hygiene’ but political hygiene, ending with the derailment of President Trump’s political career and the destruction of his real estate business.”
And then this haymaker from Friedman, who was part of the five-judge panel that ruled unanimously in Trump’s favor: “The voters have obviously rendered a verdict on his political career. This bench today unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business.”
If that doesn’t give you goosebumps, you might want to check your pulse.
Recall that last year, a lower-court judge had ordered Trump to cough up an astounding $355 million in penalties after ruling that he had padded his financial statements to lenders and insurers. With interest, that whopping sum is now more than $515 million.
“While harm certainly occurred,” wrote Democrat-appointed judges Dianne Renwick and Peter Moulton in a separate opinion, “it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award.”
Whoa. Harm? What harm? Harm to whom? Remember: The “victim” in this case was the bank that freely and of its own volition loaned money to the Trump organization — and wanted to loan more money to the Trump organization!
Indeed, as constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley writes: “The court found little legal or factual basis for the fine. The purported witnesses not only did not lose a dime, but they testified that they made money on the loans and wanted new loans with the Trump administration.”
But then those two Democrat judges regained their footing, calling the penalty “an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
Ah, the Eighth. It’s true that this is a state case, and that the Eighth was originally meant to restrict the federal government. But the 14th Amendment’s due process clause has since brought the protective umbrella of the Bill of Rights upon the states. At just 16 words, the Eighth is our pithiest amendment, but it packs a wallop against the likes of Letitia James and her colleagues on the Lawfare Left: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
As it turns out, the Constitution says what it means and means what it says.
So it goes for James, New York’s corrupt attorney general, whose Ahabian quest — no, whose Messianic mission — has always been to destroy Trump not only personally and professionally but also politically.
She’s not out of the woods yet, though. Lawfare, as it turns out, is a boomerang, and Trump’s Justice Department, as the AP reports, has subpoenaed James for records related to the lawsuit as part of an investigation into whether she violated Trump’s civil rights. Spoiler alert: She did.
James, though, isn’t the only villain here. The singular fine in the case — against Trump, his organization, and his two sons — was levied by Manhattan “Supreme” “Court” “Judge” Arthur Engoron, and it exceeded $527 million, including interest.
Engoron, you’ll recall, is the cartoonish little troglodyte who primped for the cameras and who laughably assessed Trump’s spectacular Mar-a-Lago property — the crown jewel of Palm Beach — at a paltry $18 million, when any dunce with a thimble’s worth of gray matter knows its real value is closer to $1 billion.
Trump, understandably, couldn’t contain himself. He called yesterday’s judgment “TOTAL VICTORY” on Truth Social before launching into a touchdown dance that would’ve made Billy “White Shoes” Johnson blush:
I greatly respect the fact that the Court had the Courage to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful Decision that was hurting Business all throughout New York State. Others were afraid to do business there. The amount, including Interest and Penalties, was over $550 Million Dollars. It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before. This was a Case of Election Interference by the City and State trying to show, illegally, that I did things that were wrong when, in fact, everything I did was absolutely CORRECT and, even, PERFECT. Every single Dollar was thrown out, even the penalties imposed on us by the Corrupt Judge, one of the most overturned in History, Arthur Engoron. I wasn’t given a Jury and, during the course of the Trial, which lasted a long time, was not given one Ruling in my favor by this Political Hack, but worse than him, if that’s possible, was Letitia James, a Corrupt and Incompetent Attorney General who only brought this Case in order to hurt me politically. She is a Trump Deranged Lunatic!
We can’t argue with the president on that count. What remains to be seen is whether justice will be served to James for unlawfully attacking Donald Trump.
