Below is my column in Fox.com on the New York opinion tossing out the grotesque half-billion-dollar fine imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron. Despite the support of many lawyers and pundits, Engoron could not get a single judge to agree with him on the fine.
Here is the column:
In New York, a court revealed that a leading citizen had cooked the books by inflating questionable figures without any support in reality. Moreover, his wild overvaluation was widely viewed as motivated by his self-aggrandizement. The final reported figures are so absurdly inflated that they were rejected in their entirety. In the end, he was off by over half a billion dollars.
That man is Judge Arthur Engoron.
After a New York appellate court unanimously threw out Engoron’s absurd half-a-billion-dollar judgment and interest against President Donald Trump, the irony was crushing. It was Engoron who seemed, as he characterized Trump witnesses, as having “simply denied reality.” It made his notorious reliance on an assessment of Mar-a-Lago as worth between $18 million and $27.6 million seem like good accounting.
In the end, he could not get a single judge to preserve a single dollar of that fine.
For some of us who covered that trial, the most vivid image of Engoron came at the start. He indicated that he did not want cameras in the courtroom, but when the networks showed up, Engoron took off his glasses and seemed to pose for the cameras.
It was a “Sunset Boulevard” moment. We only need Gloria Swanson looking into the camera to speak to “those wonderful people out there in the dark!” and announcing “all right, [Ms. James], I’m ready for my close-up.”
The close-up was not a good idea, and, on appeal, it was perfectly disastrous. The court found little legal or factual basis for his 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. That did not move Engoron. From the start, he was speaking to those “wonderful people out there.”
You did not have to go far. In both the civil and criminal trials of Trump in New York, there was a carnival atmosphere in the street outside the courthouse. It was really not derangement as much as delirium. Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James had injected lawfare directly into the veins of New Yorkers. Pledging in her campaign to bag Trump (without bothering to name any crime or violation), James was elected based on her recreational rather than legal appeal.
Yet, James could not have succeeded if she had not had a judge willing to ignore reality and cook the books on the fines. She needed a partner in lawfare. She needed Engoron.
Even for some anti-Trump commentators, the judgment was impossible to defend and some acknowledged that they had never seen any case like this one brought in New York.
Judge David Friedman gave Engoron a close-up that would have made Swanson wince. He detailed how the underlying law “has never been used in the way it is being used in this case – namely, to attack successful, private, commercial transactions, negotiated at arm’s length between highly sophisticated parties fully capable of monitoring and defending their own interests.”
He accused Engoron of participating in an effort clearly directed by James as “ending with the derailment of President Trump’s political career and the destruction of his real estate business.”
Other judges said that Engoron’s fine was so off base and engorged that it was an unconstitutional order under the Eighth Amendment, protecting citizens from “cruel and unusual” punishments. So, Engoron not only inflated the figures but shredded the Constitution in his effort to deliver a blow against Trump.
Trump can now appeal the residual parts of the Engoron decision imposing limits on the Trump family doing business in New York. Some of those limits could be moot by the time of any final judgment. Ironically, if Engoron had shown a modicum of restraint, he might have secured a victory. During the trial in New York, I said that he would have been smart to impose a dollar fine and limited injunctive relief. That, however, required a modicum of judicial restraint and judgment.
Instead, Engoron chose to walk down the stairway into infamy. He was off by half a billion dollars, which could put him in the Bernie Madoff class of judges.
In other words, if he wanted to be remembered on that first day, Arthur Engoron succeeded.
Trump got a $510 million fine erased.
The Left got a few dead cats bouncing.
I’d call that a massive victory.
And here’s one of those bouncing cats: The Court “did NOT overturn the ruling that Trump engaged in fraud . . .”
That’s one of those Leftist/media statements that is both true and a lie (by omission), at the same time. The Court did not overturn the ruling. But it did order (3-2) that Trump is entitled to a new trial to determine whether he is liable for fraud.
Arthur Engoron has become immortal and Merriam Webster is considering adding a new word: “engoron”.
Definition of Engoron (en-gor-on): verb. To present an argument or premise with great authority even though said argument or premise lack any merit whatsoever.
Example: “That pharmacologist realy engoroned the Pharmaceutical Convention when he boasted that the trial result for his new drug exceeded expectations when the actual result was that patients taking the placebo became healthier than those taking his drug.”
People 50 years from now will be saying, “Don’t let someone engoron you with bold assertions based on nothing but bluster and artifice.”
I went to the bathroom to take a big Engoron. Man that Engoron smelled nasty.
Nothing illustrated Justice Barrett’s recent warning of an autocratic imperial judiciary quite like this half-billion dollar award.
Good that the fine was thrown out but what about the judgement itself? Was it also thrown out or is Tump still – de jure – a “convicted felon”?
I think the article said that Pres. Trump could/should get a new trial regarding the guilty verdict.
Leftists are so out of touch with real life and normal people that they now have to be told to stop talking the way they talk.
https://nypost.com/2025/08/22/us-news/words-democrats-should-avoid-to-stop-sounding-like-enforcers-of-wokeness/
“Goofy Gavin Ewsom”
Meanwhile, a Democrat protester at a Winsome Sears rally in Virginia held up a sign saying that if men can’t invade women’s bathrooms then blacks can’t drink at the same water fountains as whites.
This is not normal. This is not sane. This is your Democratic Party in 2025.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/virginia-leaders-condemn-racist-sign-aimed-lt-gov-winsome-earle-sears-bathroom-policy
A long standing Democrat position. At least they are being consistent for a change.
*. Where in the United States Constitution does it use “preemptive pardons”?
He shall have the Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons;
Pardons, any and all, complete and without qualification.
______________________________________________________________
Article II, Section 2
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
@Anon,
What do you mean by preemptive pardons?
If you mean after the act, but before any criminal proceedings? Yes that can happen.
If you mean before any actual action has occurred ? No the criminal act had to have occurred before a pardon could be granted.
The pardon needs to specify the criminal act.
-G
Don’t attempt to illicitly and unconstitutionally revise the Constitution, read the Constitution.
The pardon, the whole pardon, and nothing but the pardon, so help you God.
Judge Engoron’s penalty just got blasted to oblivion. Based on Judge Friedman’s opinion, the whole case will soon be consigned to the ash heap of overturned lawfare. It is the Monty Python’s Black Knight of verdicts: no legs, no arms, bleeding profusely, yet still proclaiming its validity against all evidence…
This Attorney General is a gluten for punishment. The NY Appellate Court did all that it could to get Her (Letitia James) and Judge Arthur Engoron out of this mess unscathed, and now She’s going to file an Appeal. She should ‘let it go’, because the Trumps are going to file a Suit in Federal Court to address their lecherous pursuit.
The Trumps will drag Her and Eragon together in a claim of election Lawfare for Election Interference under “18 U.S.C. 241″, this and more claims.
The Damages sought are going to cost Letitia James and Arthur Engoron more than their life’s savings (retirement, all of it, lock stock and barrel), something neither one of them were counting on (particularly Engoron – what a shame, so close to the end, and loosing it all). The best part is regardless of the outcome of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ Appeal outcome, the Trumps can go forward with their claims in Federal Court outside of the New York State judicial system. The ball is in Trump’s Court.
Karma, what goes around comes around. They deserve it.
Professor Turley, thank you. I deeply admire both your ability and courage in bringing light into the horrors of the last 16 years, even if it means exposing the complete disregard of law by those “certified” to practice. This takes courage in intellect – and is no longer common. Thank you.
A little reality check. While this exposure has value, the actual battle has already resulted in the disablement of evidence and process, as well as downright support of legal persecution. Further result has been witholding/destruction of evidence through “classification”, obstruction, disguise, and outright collusion that removes that evidence from the process through statute of limitations, “security” removal from defense submission, and outright Judicial refusal to allow submission of defense.
These crimes, as they have in history, will leave the victims thereof in nameless graves and their families and associates demeaned, degraded, and “culturally” disgraced.
How sad for the History of the United States.
Raymond Donovan (Secretary of Labor) and six other defendants were indicted by a Bronx County, New York, grand jury for larceny and fraud. On May 25, 1987, Donovan (and all of the other defendants) were acquitted with a number of jurors openly applauding the verdict, after which Donovan was famously quoted as asking, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”. He never did. Those who knew it was a political persecution never doubted his integrity.
Congratulations Jonathan on you finesse comment on schmuck Engoron in form of high end eraser picture. However, I don’t think he got a message with his level of TDS.
I did a quick statistical breakdown of the comments. A quick count reveals approximately 212 Anonymous posts out of 344 total. That’s about 62% of the comments here coming from either one or two entities.
Too bad…
Oh, it’s a lot more than “one or two entities”…
This is my only real complaint about Professor Turley’s blog: everyone should have unique monikers. It gets tiresome figuring out who all of the “Anonymous”‘s are.
You are correct.
Here are are lot more than one or two entities.
In fact there is a team of 27 of us assigned to this blog.
We are hired by George Soros to disrupt this blog as much as possible. Although George hired us, we are actually paid by the Chinese Communist Party, which as you know works very closely with George.
We are paid a lot of money to troll this blog.
Xi Jinpeng himself has told us that it is his top priority to disrupt this blog as much as possible.
Your 27 different personalities maybe!
To the dismay of Trump haters everywhere, Maxwell says she never saw Trump do anything inappropriate.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/22/ghislaine-maxwell-transcripts-trump-epstein-doj.html
oldmanfromkansas
How stupidly gullible can you possibly be ????
Maxwell’s attorney has explicitly stated that she is seeking a pardon.
Trump, when asked, says he does not rule out a pardon.
So what do you think is going on here ????
Since you are so deep in the MAGA propaganda, let me spell it out.
Maxwell will say anything in order to get a pardon.
BTW, you may be interested in buying a bridge that I own in NYC.
I can give you a great deal !!!!
Let me know if you are interested.
Pare us your imperious bable….you literally smelled the full diaper of joey and ignored it’s implications. You were more than willing to get behind an installed puppet of such low moral and mental faculty after joey was forced to step down says all that needs to be said about your ilk.
If John Bolton is keeping classified documents in his home office he must be severely punished.
As everyone knows, the only appropriate place to store such material is in the bathroom
Or the garage.
Or penn college in the briben center , with chinese cadre protecting it.
Shabbat Shalom everyone 🙂
Have a peaceful sabbath
Ah, lovely message, Shalom to all.
Gigi can’t quit us. Her pathetic life has no meaning if she’s not trolling the blog of a successful author and law professor.
Gigi is not commenting — you have Gigi Derangement Syndrome!