I have an op-ed in today’s New York Post on last week’s oral argument, before a New York appeals court, in former president Trump’s challenge of the nearly $500 million verdict (with compounding interest) in state attorney general Letitia James’s unabashedly partisan civil case against him — the case in which she and another elected progressive Democrat, Judge Arthur Engoron, teamed up to concoct a “massive” alleged fraud scheme . . . with no fraud victims.

The case involved an unprecedented application of state consumer-protection law to arm’s-length transactions between sophisticated financial actors.

I write:

Mostly, the [appellate] judges worried aloud that the AG had overstepped her jurisdiction and had no business refereeing private transactions between sophisticated financial actors.

Most judges seemed unmoved by the state’s tenuous claim that Trump’s lenders must have dealt more unfavorably with the public due to the risks attendant to dealing with Trump.

Oral argument is not always a reliable indicator of how a court will rule. In this instance, though, the penalty imposed is so out of proportion with Trump’s alleged wrong that it smacks of a US constitutional violation of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments.

You can read the whole thing here.