It finally happened. Sensible New Yorkers have come to terms with the damage that “getting Trump” has done to their image as a place to invest money. After all, why would any investor or business owner want to operate in a state where a “fraud” case can be invented against you? I have a feeling that a lot of people with wealth in New York started making plans to pack up to Florida or elsewhere. You can’t blame them for saying: “They ‘got’ Trump, I’m next.” Last, but not least, who remembers Kevin O’Leary telling a CNN host: “What fraud? This is not about Trump anymore”?
As always, we check with Professor Jonathan Turley for some perspective:
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.
Yes, no one had seen justice like that before. Why? Because there was no justice here. It was using the legal system to get Trump, or something that our judicial system was not supposed to do.
We can understand, not defend but understand, how highly partisan AG James brought this case. She was out to get Trump and couldn’t restrain her TDS. However, the judge should have stopped her and asked: “Where is the fraud or crime?” Instead, the judge added to the lie by inventing his own definition of fraud.
So Judge Endregon has a little explaining to do and I hope it’s before the Bar Association. This man should never preside over another trial in New York or elsewhere.
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Image generated by AI.