This is not the "34 felony conviction" that Manhattan Soros Bot Alvin Bragg cooked up against Trump, so we can't -- yet -- say that Trump is officially not a felon.

This is the civil action brought by obese beefy lesbian* "Tish" James claiming that Trump overestimated the value of his properties for the purpose of calculating collateral for loans, an estimate that his counterparties, the banks, said they did not rely upon -- they do their own estimations -- and which cost them nothing, as all of the loans were repaid.

This is also the case in which Engoron started the "trial" by declaring that, in his one-man partisan opinion, Trump was guilty of fraud and that all that remained was to calculate the size of the penalty he'd have to pay.

This judgement does not erase the judgment against Trump. The Appeals Court left that to New York's highest court, confusingly called the New York Court of Appeals. Trump will almost certainly appeal the judgment itself, and also the one part of Engoron's penalty that the Appeals Court left standing, a court-ordered monitor to observe how Trump runs his businesses.

But this is a big deal. It's a big deal when an over half-billion dollar penalty is completely erased. And while Trump did not pay that, he was forced to pay for a bond to cover the penalty, I think in the amount of around $150 million. Every month he had to pay huge upkeep (insurance payments) for that bond.

He doesn't have to pay that any longer.

Ed Morrissey, quoting from the New York Times, which is, of course, emphasizing that Trump is still officially liable for fraud.

For the moment. Morrissey, on the other hand, emphasizes that Trump will appeal to the highest court and that the appellate court took the coward's way out by punting on the real question here.

An appeals court has thrown out the massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump, ruling Thursday in New York state's lawsuit accusing him of exaggerating his wealth. ...

"While the injunctive relief ordered by the court is well crafted to curb defendants' business culture, 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," Judges Dianne T. Renwick and Peter H. Moulton wrote in one of several opinions shaping the appeals court's ruling.

Engoron also imposed other punishments, such as banning Trump and his two eldest sons from serving in corporate leadership for a few years. Those provisions have been on pause during Trump's appeal, and he was able to hold off collection of the money by posting a $175 million bond.

Below, gay liberal libertarian Andrew Napolitano discusses the possibility of Trump winning a civil-rights lawsuit against the state of New York and the obese beefy lesbian "Tish" James. He says that the obese beefy lesbian's repeatedly election promises to prosecute Trump for an offense to be determined later aren't enough, in themselves, to prove a civil rights violation, as the law requires an abuse of an office that someone has already won. That is, her pre-election promises to violate Trump's civil rights were made as a civilian, not a political official, and aren't proof of her crimes in themselves.

However, he says that those statements will be evidence of intent to violate Trump's civil rights, and if any emails are discovered in which the obese beefy lesbian talks about getting Trump for political reasons while in office -- which he thinks will probably be discovered -- then she can be found liable. (Unfortunately this would be a civil suit, not a criminal one.)

If she or any of her staffers mention pleasing her voting base in an email discussing the Trump frame-up, that's evidence of a conspiracy to deprive Trump of his civil rights.

He points out that Nifong in the Duke Fake Rape Case was sued successfully for a deliberate violation of a defendant's civil rights for political reasons.

• I have no evidence for this except for the obvious: she looks like an angry lesbian and has never married.

On the other hand, she has had sex with a man at least one time.

That encounter resulted in a baby, which she aborted -- proudly.

James lives in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn and is a member of Emmanuel Baptist Church. She has never married.

At a May 2022 rally, James stated that she supported abortion rights, and had received an abortion early in her tenure as a member of the New York City Council. James said, "I was just elected and I was faced with the decision of whether to have an abortion or not, and I chose to have an abortion. I walked proudly into Planned Parenthood, and I make no apologies to anyone."