If you needed any more proof that the New York civil fraud trial against Donald Trump, his family, and his business is political theater choreographed by elected Democrats posing a law-enforcement and judicial officers, look no further than X/Twitter. There, on Sunday, Letitia James — the elected Democrat DA who campaigned for office, Lavrentiy Beria-style, vowing to get Trump on something — proclaimed:
Tomorrow, Donald Trump takes the stand in our trial against his fraudulent business. Trump can try to hide his wrondoings behind taunts and threats, but we will not be bullied out of uncovering the truth.
You want to say this is nothing compared to what Trump has been saying? Well, Trump is not an attorney bound by the rules of professional ethics, which prohibit lawyers participating in litigation from making prejudicial public statements out of court. Nor is Trump the government’s attorney with a special obligation to ensure the defendant’s due-process rights. Loudmouth defendants (and sometimes, shrill defense lawyers) make improper statements blasting the government and its lawyers all the time. Rolling with the punches while quietly going about your work is the job.
But that is in a real legal system. New York is a political system masquerading as the judicial process.
In a real trial with a real judge, the attorney for the government would not dare pull a stunt like James’s post right as the lead defendant is about to take the witness stand. This, to the contrary, is a show trial in which elected Democrat James’s elected Democrat sidekick, Judge Arthur Engoron, pronounced Trump guilty before the trial began. The two-to-three month farce that has ensued is simply about how much Engoron is going to let (or, better, help) James run up the score — i.e., the “disgorgement” penalty that could spike to more than a quarter-billion dollars by the time all is said and done . . . in a “fraud” case where there are no fraud victims.
Remember, James’s case is the scraps that federal and state prosecutors decided not to indict because nobody was harmed by Trump’s inflation of asset values — particularly under circumstances where (a) Trump’s statements of financial condition contain a disclaimer essentially warning that they should not be relied upon, and (b) at issue are high-end transactions involving sophisticated financial actors (e.g., banks and insurance companies) that do their own due-diligence before transacting.
As I have explained, and as the estimable Phil Hamburger demonstrates in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, the statute under which James is proceeding is monstrous — enabling the state to put a thriving company out of business, and disgorge all its revenue, without any showing of intentional deceit, much less actual fraud.
If you want to tell me the Empire Nanny State is entitled to regulate statements of financial condition exchanged between business entities that are far more competent than the state to evaluate them, under the guise of overseeing an honest marketplace, then fine. After all, no one has to live in New York or do business there, so if you want to operate under those conditions, it’s your funeral. But then fine Trump a million bucks and call it a day.
What elected Democrats are instead imposing is the corporate death penalty for a jay-walking infraction.
And it is patently political. If Democrats want to know why Trump is polling so well against Biden, they ought to look in the mirror. Many people who loathe Trump but fear woke dictatorship more have figured out that what elected Democrats do to him, under the façade of “justice,” they can do to anyone.