President Donald Trump scored a major legal victory earlier this week. A New York appeals court ruled that a civil $464 million commercial fraud penalty against him and the Trump real estate empire was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. The penalty was unconstitutionally excessive.

Still, the commercial fraud finding stands. Further appeals will follow. 

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The decision is a welcome win for the rule of law. The ruling is also a clear rebuke of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who ran for the office of state attorney general with the campaign pledge to bring down Trump. She said on numerous occasions that Trump was an illegitimate president.

Except for the decision that the penalty was unconstitutional, there was little agreement about the case among the five judges of the appeals court. The opinion of the court ran to over 300 pages. The details of the opinion are complex. The court was fractured on the rationale for their opinions. Two of the judges, Dianne T. Renwick and Peter H. Moulton, found that “the court’s civil fraud penalty, of almost $500 million 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. The case was deeply flawed from the very beginning. This was a commercial transaction —loans for the Trump real estate company involving two sophisticated parties. On one side, the Trump real estate empire, and on the other side, major financial institutions. Each party had equal bargaining power. 

There was no coercion. Very importantly, no one was harmed. The banks did not claim damages. The banks were the true parties of interest. If there had been commercial harm, the banks logically would have sued Trump and his company. 

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This case was completely a political vendetta by an out-of-control state attorney general who decided that her views counted more than the views of the millions of voters who supported Trump when he was first elected in 2016. 

Fortunately, this perversion of the American legal system was largely reversed earlier this week. The rule of law still matters.