TenQ, can you show us some examples of Trump Lawfare from his first stint as Pres?
The One That Got Away: Letitia James and the Perils of Trophy Fishing
 Below is my column in the New York Post on the appellate court decision to toss the entirety of the fine imposed against President Donald Trump in the civil action brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Here is the column:
New York Attorney General Letitia James is going to need a bigger fish or a smaller trophy wall.
For months, James has paraded her victory over President Donald Trump in her civil judgment of half a billion dollars. It did not matter that many of us denounced the judgment as grotesque and raw lawfare.
Now, however, the appellate court has replaced that mounted Marlin with a mere minnow. It threw out the financial penalty as unconstitutional and unwarranted.
Even that downsized catch may have to be pulled down, since Trump can appeal the decision to leave the injunctive relief — including limits on doing business in New York — in place.
The problem is that this over-stuffed guppy has cost the people of New York tens of millions of dollars in staff, security and other costs. It was all just the cost of doing business with James, who ran on the pledge to bag Trump on something — anything! — if elected.
For James, it was worth it. For her base, the case was never about the merits or the law. James offered lawfare against political opponents, and New York Democrats elected her with a gleeful malice.
They were thrilled as James suggested that she was going to seize Trump buildings after the judgment and sought a massive bond.
Notably, even the judges who sided with James on her ability to bring this case were critical of her ethics or judgment in running on bagging an individual on unnamed crimes or civil actions. They simply chose not to do anything about it.
It was Judge David Friedman, who, on the appeal, offered an unblinking account of how James abused the legal system.
“Plainly, her ultimate goal was not ‘market hygiene’ . . . but political hygiene, ending with the derailment of President Trump’s political career and the destruction of his real estate business. The voters have obviously rendered a verdict on his political career. This bench today unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business.”
The five appeals court judges fractured on the rationale for their opinions. Two of the judges — Dianne T. Renwick and Peter H. Moulton — correctly found that “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.”
The rest of the judges found other reasons to negate the damages while preserving the fraud judgment.
In the end, James could not get a single vote on appeal to support Judge Arthur Engoron’s ridiculous fine. Engoron, like James, will continue to enjoy the status of a folk hero in New York. But he will go down in history as a judge who yielded to the demands of the mob rather than the law.
Yet nothing will change. With the exception of Judge Friedman, the mild rebukes of the appellate court of James show how Trump remains persona non grata, a disfavored figure who is entitled to no consideration, let alone sympathy, in New York.
The most courage that Judge Moulton could summon was to say, “One can reasonably question whether a candidate running for the top law enforcement position in statewide government should make such pointed statements.”
I suppose one could also reasonably question whether a judge faced with blatant, open targeting of a political opponent should do more than a judicial shrug. |
