Leftist NY Attorney General and Judge vs. the Rule of Law How they weaponized the justice system to get Trump. by Joseph Klein
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/leftist-ny-attorney-general-and-judge-vs-the-rule-of-law/
New York State Attorney General Letitia James and New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur F. Engoron have provided a case study in how the Left conducts war against the integrity and impartiality of law enforcement and the judiciary. Together, they weaponized the justice system to wage their personal vendetta against Donald Trump. Their weapon of choice was a broad and vaguely written New York State fraud statute, Executive Law Section 63(12), which they maliciously twisted for the purpose of ruining Mr. Trump financially.
In 2022, Judge Engoron told Donald Trump’s attorney that Mr. Trump is “just a bad guy” whom Letitia James “should go after as the chief law enforcement officer of the state,” which is precisely what she was doing. Judge Engoron’s highly biased statement alone should have disqualified him from presiding over any case involving Mr. Trump. This judge should also have been disqualified for donating to the Manhattan Democrats in violation of Section 100.5(h) of the New York Courts Rules of Judicial Conduct. But Judge Engoron remained on the case.
Judge Engoron had no reason to doubt that Ms. James would zealously “go after” the man who Judge Engoron smeared as “a bad guy.” After all, this left-wing fanatic had promised during her attorney general election campaign to target then-President Trump. “I’m running for attorney general because I will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president when our fundamental rights are at stake,” this election denier declared. “We need an attorney general who will stand up to Donald Trump.”
Then, shortly before taking office as the next New York attorney general, Ms. James said, “We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well.” She had her eyes focused on Trump’s business operations, declaring that “I will shine a light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings, and every dealing.”
Attorney General James was true to her word. She abused her powers to persecute Mr. Trump with the kind of single-minded obsession that Captain Ahab displayed in pursuing his archnemesis, Moby Dick.
In 2022, after an exhaustive waste of taxpayers’ money investigating the Trump business enterprise, Ms. James set the trap that she hoped would put Donald Trump out of business for good. She sued Mr. Trump, members of his family, and his company for alleged fraud in violation of Executive Law Section 63(12). James alleged that they provided lenders, insurers, and others with financial statements which significantly inflated the values of the Trump enterprise’s real estate holdings.
Judge Engoron then picked up the baton while Attorney General James sat in his courtroom day after day watching with a smirk on her face as her fellow Trump-hater conducted a Kafkaesque “judicial” proceeding.
Judge Engoron started out by entering summary judgment against Mr. Trump and his co-defendants, finding them liable for committing repeated and persistent “fraud” after ruling that Mr. Trump and his co-defendants were not entitled to a jury trial. Instead, Engoron himself assumed the role of both fact finder and decider of their fates. The judge rationalized that Attorney General James had brought a civil case in which she was primarily seeking equitable relief (an injunction) for which he said that a jury trial was not appropriate. In fact, the judge decided that there would not even be a bench trial on the liability issue during which witnesses could have testified in person and could have been subject to cross examination. Why let the facts and a fair trial get in the way of a leftist judge’s biases?
Judge Engoron used as an example in support of his finding of “fraud” the Trump Organization’s claim that Mar-a-Lago was worth between $426 and $612 million. The judge assumed, as if it were an established fact, that Mar-a-Lago was only worth somewhere between $18 and $27.6 million, rejecting expert opinion substantiating a much higher valuation.
Judge Engoron also dismissed as irrelevant critical facts that would have led to the dismissal of any normal fraud case. There were no victims of the alleged “fraud.” The sophisticated lenders and insurers did not rely on the valuations that Trump and his co-defendants provided to them, which were accompanied by a disclaimer in any event. The lenders did their own due diligence by independently assessing the value of the Trump assets and yet lent money to the Trump enterprise anyway.
The defendants paid the lenders back on time in full, with interest, as the parties to the business transactions had agreed. The financial companies that were supposedly defrauded were so satisfied that they continued to do business with the defendants.
Nevertheless, Judge Engoron arbitrarily decreed that Mr. Trump and his co-defendants committed repeated and persistent “fraud” under a statute that defines “fraud” in a highly vague manner. Judge Engoron brushed aside the normal elements that must be proven to establish liability for fraud under the common law, such as reliance, intent, and materiality. Twisting the law to accommodate a political agenda is how left-wing progressive judges operate.
Next, Judge Engoron turned to the damages phase. Just as he had done during the liability phase, Judge Engoron refused to conduct a jury trial. He conducted a mock bench trial instead.
Letitia James had originally requested $250 million in damages. Justice Engoron did not think that was enough. Donald Trump was ordered to pay a $355 million monetary penalty and has been barred from doing business in New York State for three years. With interest added, Mr. Trump would be responsible for paying more than $450 million if Engoron’s judgment stands.
The left-wing judge had expected Mr. Trump and his co-defendants to deliver a Soviet-style statement of confession and contrition, exclaiming that “Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological.” But as is their right in America, Mr. Trump and his co-defendants did not agree to a coerced admission of wrongdoing because they believed that they had done nothing wrong.
Judge Engoron trampled on Mr. Trump’s and his co-defendants’ fundamental constitutional due process rights. He also deprived them of their fundamental constitutional right to a jury trial in a civil case where the plaintiff was seeking a huge monetary penalty. This left-wing judge’s insults, gag order, and most notably the outrageous penalty that he imposed on Mr. Trump, displayed the personal pathological animus towards the president-elect that he shares with Attorney General James.
A five-judge panel on New York’s mid-level state appellate court – the Appellate Division – heard oral arguments after Mr. Trump appealed Judge Engoron’s outrageous liability and damages decisions. Members of the panel expressed grave concerns that James and Engoron had overreached.
For example, Justice David Friedman noted that the law Ms. James used as the basis for her lawsuit “is supposed to protect the market and the consumers – I don’t see it here.” It was being applied to private business transactions “between equally sophisticated partners” in which nobody “lost any money.”
Justice Llinet Rosado observed that the business transactions at issue had “little to no impact on the public marketplace.”
The New York State attorney from Attorney General James’ office argued that Mr. Trump’s alleged “fraud” did have an adverse impact on the marketplace of the kind that Executive Law Section 63(12) was designed to address. But the argument that she presented to the skeptical appellate judges fell flat.
Justice John Higgitt was deeply concerned about the potential lack of constraints in applying Executive Law Section 63(12) to business transactions like the ones at issue in this case. “How do we draw a line, or at least put up some guardrails, to know when the AG [attorney general] is operating well within her broad — admittedly broad — sphere … and when she is going into an area that wasn’t intended for her jurisdiction?” Justice Higgitt asked.
Justice Peter Moulton zeroed in on the “immense penalty in this case,” which he described as “troubling.” Justice Moulton asked: “How do you tether the amount that was assessed by the [New York] Supreme Court to the harm that was caused here where the parties left these transactions happy?”
The New York State attorney could not deliver a credible answer to this question. There is none. Indeed, the $450 million+ in damages that Judge Engoron assessed against Mr. Trump was so far out of bounds that it most likely violated the 8th Amendment’s prohibition of “excessive fines” and infliction of “cruel and unusual punishment.”
New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur F. Engoron and New York State’s Attorney General Letitia James scandalously weaponized the law to persecute their political archenemy and interfere with the 2024 presidential election. This is how left-wing attorneys general and judges wage war on an honest and impartial justice system.
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