Below is my column in the New York Post on the appellate court decision to toss the entirety of the fine imposed against President Donald Trump in the civil action brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Here is the column:
New York Attorney General Letitia James is going to need a bigger fish or a smaller trophy wall.
For months, James has paraded her victory over President Donald Trump in her civil judgment of half a billion dollars. It did not matter that many of us denounced the judgment as grotesque and raw lawfare.
Now, however, the appellate court has replaced that mounted Marlin with a mere minnow. It threw out the financial penalty as unconstitutional and unwarranted.
Even that downsized catch may have to be pulled down, since Trump can appeal the decision to leave the injunctive relief — including limits on doing business in New York — in place.
The problem is that this over-stuffed guppy has cost the people of New York tens of millions of dollars in staff, security and other costs. It was all just the cost of doing business with James, who ran on the pledge to bag Trump on something — anything! — if elected.
For James, it was worth it. For her base, the case was never about the merits or the law. James offered lawfare against political opponents, and New York Democrats elected her with a gleeful malice.
They were thrilled as James suggested that she was going to seize Trump buildings after the judgment and sought a massive bond.
Notably, even the judges who sided with James on her ability to bring this case were critical of her ethics or judgment in running on bagging an individual on unnamed crimes or civil actions. They simply chose not to do anything about it.
It was Judge David Friedman, who, on the appeal, offered an unblinking account of how James abused the legal system.
“Plainly, 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. The voters have obviously rendered a verdict on his political career. This bench today unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business.”
The five appeals court judges fractured on the rationale for their opinions. Two of the judges — Dianne T. Renwick and Peter H. Moulton — correctly found that “the court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
The rest of the judges found other reasons to negate the damages while preserving the fraud judgment.
In the end, James could not get a single vote on appeal to support Judge Arthur Engoron’s ridiculous fine. Engoron, like James, will continue to enjoy the status of a folk hero in New York. But he will go down in history as a judge who yielded to the demands of the mob rather than the law.
Yet nothing will change. With the exception of Judge Friedman, the mild rebukes of the appellate court of James show how Trump remains persona non grata, a disfavored figure who is entitled to no consideration, let alone sympathy, in New York.
The most courage that Judge Moulton could summon was to say, “One can reasonably question whether a candidate running for the top law enforcement position in statewide government should make such pointed statements.”
I suppose one could also reasonably question whether a judge faced with blatant, open targeting of a political opponent should do more than a judicial shrug.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Contemptible judge(s) and just plain evil Tish James aside; this whole situation gives new meaning to the term “They eat their own”.
Donald Trump’s business reputation in New York is legendary. The legacy he leaves is positive undisputed.
Please name one man working at that level, who hasn’t difficulty or flaw. None have been lined up unceremoniously to the extent that Trump was.
Same for Guliani.
Anybody who sides with Tish or her ’cause’ Well, hopefully get what they have worked so hard to deserve.
Engoron, James…Hillary/obamma is backpedalling. Tic toc tic toc.
Jail the criminals and hang treasonous and the leaders of the insurrection. billary, obamma, gates, their intel pawns, soros and his lackeys, the eric holders and weinsteins, the immigrations crooks. I want a Mussolini-esque photo but with 20x the people on the gallows. ENOUGH!
Letitia James should also be charged with election interference (at the very least). She attempted to prevent Trump from becoming president again.
The judicial, Justice and Administrative corruption of the Democrats is Herculean. Trump is now busy cleaning up that American version of the Augean Stables. Comey, Brennan, Clapper, McCabe, James, Schiff, Willis… The parade of clowns now doing the perp walk is nothing short of astounding. What goes around comes around. It’s, like, karma, man!
Engoron is a piece of work. He was a lawyer for only 4 years before quitting to become a music teacher . Some seven years later, he took a job as a law clerk for a judge, a decade after that becoming a judge himself.
O’Keefe recorded him creeping out much younger women at his gym
Speaking of James O’Keefe, has anyone yet figured out how the FBI became the collections agency for misplaced diaries of the Biden Crime Family? Exactly what crime was O’Keefe alleged to have committed in order to justify an FBI raid? Was Brandon hiding some of his stolen classified documents in his daughter’s diary, perhaps?
That may be true however it pales with the actions of Trump and his sexual abuse of 25 or 25 women and his being best friends with Epstein for at least 10 years.
“That may be true however it pales with the actions of Trump and his sexual abuse of 25 or 25 women and his being best friends with Epstein for at least 10 years.”
Gigi, didn’t you get the memo? The Epstein thing didn’t work, Trump’s numbers are stable or even going up. Nobody cares anymore. You can move on to the next lame talking point.
I know you know this, but top shelf analysis.
PS: wanted to share this
White Milksop’s Protest in D.C. to Advocate for Continued Black on Black Crime (Things a Racist Would Say). https://torrancestephensphd.substack.com/p/white-milksops-protest-in-dc-to-advocate
One might add to the descriptor “gleeful malice,” the term “bottomless hypocrisy.” As voters everywhere across the nation abandon the Perfidy Party, the future of the Republic is beginning to look brighter. BTW, is Brandon still “with us,” … and does anyone other than Dr. Jill and Hunter really care?
Apparently Robert Mueller is in the nursing home, I can’t imagine that Brandon is far behind.
To people like Letitia James, these charges were nothing more than reparations, and she feels no remorse, no regret, and probably no guilt.
When the New York Stock Exchange, founded in 1792, moves out of New York for good, the Democrat Party will be to blame.
The NYSE has already eyed Texas as its future location. The big brokerage firms have been moving methodically to places other than New York City. When will the United Nations building become housing for the poor?
What does that unless screed have to do with Turley’s post?
Unless what? Are you Englishing today?
There was a time when New Yorkers sold the Brooklyn Bridge not Buy the bridge. Letitia James is emblematic of a political organization going by the name of democrat. It’s made up of various groups of hater’s consumed with envy for a belief that they’re victims of a society built on hard work and personal responsibility. They’ve now turned to a belief that a guy like Madmani will right all their perceived wrongs. The only wrongs they’ve experienced are those caused by the people they’ve supported. There is no Democrat party.
Margot,
As we have seen and even the NYT admits in a recent article, the Democrat party is losing voters in droves. The NYT article suggests it may take years if not a decade to rebuild their party.
James Carville recently said,
“Constipated. Leaderless. Confused. A cracked-out clown car. Divided. These are the words I hear my fellow Democrats using to describe our party as of late,” Carville wrote. “The truth is they’re not wrong: The Democratic Party is in shambles.”
How do you rebuild a party that looks like a cracked-out clown car?
They have nothing to offer voters, of any party, other than hate and rage. Their policies are a mess and are contra to any sane and normal people’s thinking.
If the Democrat party wants to be taken seriously again, they need to get the stupid and craze out of their party.
If Newsome is their candidate for 2028, not better.
@Upstate
Yup. I suspect this is the main reason they’ve been losing their poop over Texas – Abbott drove the final nail in the coffin of their stated intention to flip Texas blue. They definitely see the writing on the wall and they are freaking out.
Like others, I think in the near future this entire case will be nullified, right along with pro: illegal voting, illegal immigration, crime, and lawfare, and anti: science, and equal rights, policy. They are tyrants, and the illusion that people would bend over forever is shattered more and more in real time every day.
That they respond like spoiled children or sociopaths to an escalating degree is not helping their cause, with anyone.
Damning as Carville’s symptoms are, they are far from the most serious problem confronting the Democrat Party. More serious is the progressive abandonment of ethics and morality as the party is taken over by Jacobins whose quest for Power is all-consuming.
I don’t believe the majority of Democrats are such power-hungry predators; silent, or going along with the coup because of party-loyalty/past successes. I believe there are many elected officials who choose to run as Democrats simply because it is easier to win elections as member of the ‘majority’ party. What would happen should this no longer be true?
Carville’s symptoms are all fixable; but once ethics are lost, where does the party go to get it’s morality back?
This essay fails to point out that a majority of the judges disagreed with Engoron’s conclusion that Trump violated law at all. Two wanted to remand for a possible retrial and one wanted to dismiss altogether. Because they couldn’t agree on the remedy, the two voted to keep the liability finding intact, simply in order to reach a decision that could be appealed.
Daniel,
Thank you for pointing that out.
If Trump wins on appeal, it will be even more embarrassing for James and Engoron.
Trump will win. This case is a dead letter. There will a blurb in a couple of years about some appeals court tossing the remaining bits, but by then nobody will even care.
The attempt of James to confiscate Trump’s wealth has a dishonorable and ominous forerunner. After the Roman republic became the Roman Empire, several of the early emperors levied vague charges against opposing Senators to take their property and thus ruin their careers. Democrats are likely to come back to this strategy.
The judgement was half a billion, not half a trillion. Nobody in the world could afford to pay a half-trillion dollar judgement.
The correct number is used later in the text.
I noticed that typo too! I also noticed that you misspelled the word “judgment.”
“Judgment” is American English. “Judgement” is British (and Canadian, etc.) English.
Both are correct, depending on who and where you are.
Is there no remedy against her massive abuse of tax payer dollars? She has cost New York a lot. If I ever considered moving a business to New York, I wouldn’t. If I had a business there, I would leave. Who in their right mind would (or could) do business in such an environment?
The cost of blind hatred in NY equals, at the least, the cost of Leticia James’ fantastical prosecutorial overreach plus the cost of Alvin Bragg’s equally fantastical and even more unconstitutional prosecutional overreach.
And what about the indirect costs? There undoubtedly were actual crimes that went unprosecuted because the state attorney general was otherwise distracted by her illegal hunt for her white whale.
You are correct! I have been observing cases in which Ms. James has squandered taxpayer dollars for years. This civil fraud case is the most egregious. At least Rep. Elise Stefanik has filed an ethics complaint against Ms. James. We’ll see where it goes.
Snap!
so when does the punishment phase of lawless AGs, DAs, Judges, start?
We need to deport them. They ignore the Constitution, give them the Banana Republic they seek.
At death.
He never was a convicted felon in that case because it was civil as distinguished from criminal. So James never needed to prove “guilt” “beyond reasonable doubt.” Just liability by “a preponderance of the evidence.” Similarly, the case brought by the older woman who alleged that she and Trump went shopping together, claiming that she had an $87 million reputation that was somehow tarnished, was merely a civil case.
Rick2633 pretending to be a lawyer.
“Rick2633 pretending to be a lawyer.”
Gigi, you’re up early. Did you get a big ole convoy at the truck stop first thing last night?
Very nice of them to “bump this upstairs”. Hopefully the highest appeals court in New York will do the same. This travesty of justice deserves to be exposed by the light of SCOTUS
One thing is for sure. Few if any rich folks are going to invest in NY, it’s to much of a risk.
The rule of law is now lost in NY.
As it has been in DC for decades.
Lost you say? You’re lost.
Deep thoughts from a useless troll.
I have asked before: was only the fine thrown out or the judgement altogether? Is Trump – de jure – no longer a “conviced fellon”? An answer would be appreciated!
NY will try to hang on to anything now. But in the end the conviction could be tossed.
Since this was a civil case, the judgment had nothing to do with felony or misdemeanor.
BTW, want is a
Sorry, spell check went weird and then my tablet decided to post my comment without my telling it to.
But I do not believe Trump is connected to the Fellon family, and proving he were would not be a conviction.
Only the fine was thrown out. DJT will have to appeal the rest of the original judgment.
And they say there is no such thing as a stupid question.
“And they say there is no such thing as a stupid question.”
Au contraire, there certainly is whenever you ask one.
I know you are, but what am I??
Third grader
How is that any worse than the garbage that you write here every day? Can you try sobering up next time before you post?