“the notion that Donald Trump puts a number on a piece of paper and some big bank just says, oh, okay, that’s what it’s worth. That’s not how it works.”
My appearance on Fox Live Now about the real estate trial that started today: “If they wanted to charge him with fraud and penalize him for these appraisals, fine, but to then try to put him out of business, I think shows how political and how vindictive this is.”
I appeared this afternoon on Fox Live Now to talk about the civil trial of Donald Trump and numerous Trump organizations for allegedly inflating property valuations to deceive banks and insurance companies.
The backdrop to the interview was Trump’s statement as he entered court earlier in the day:
We previously covered the finding of fraud entered by the state court judge on summary judgment, based on the papers submitted without hearing live testimony, NY State Judge Finds Trump Organizations Repeatedly Provided Fraudulent Valuations To Lenders and Insurers.
The judge ordered New York business certificates for numerous Trump entities cancelled. That alone could have a devastating impact on the businesses. The current trial is just about the additional penalties sought, including hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and an order barring Trump and his organizations from doing business in New York State. That would be, as Trump has said, a business death penalty.
This all is egregious. There is no claim that consumers or banks and insurance companies lost money, or were defrauded out of money. That may not be an element of the offenses, but if you are going to destroy a massive business built over decades over property valuations without any impact on the public, it’s an overreach. And obviously politically motivated.
Here is my segment, with some short excerpts below.
Partial Transcript (Auto-generated, may contain transcription errors)
WAJ (01:45): I think there were two cases going on here. There’s the case inside the courtroom and there’s the case in the court of public opinion, so to speak. And it seems that Trump has probably come to the conclusion he’s going to lose this case. He’s already lost liability, he’s going to lose the damages and he can’t win inside the courtroom. So he’s going try to limit the damage to him politically and turn it to his political advantage by portraying himself, as he keeps saying, as the victim of a witch hunt. So I think Trump is fighting a different courtroom battle than the judge is fighting, because I think Trump’s concluded he’s going lose with this judge.
***
WAJ (02:57): He’s been attacking all the judges in all of his cases pretty much. So they’re aware of that, that that’s who he is. It can’t be helping him if he thinks he’s going intimidate the judges. They have the power, he doesn’t have the power. So I think it’s a futile effort, but he is who he is. Even if his lawyers are telling him not to do it, he’s going do it anyway. That’s his persona. And I think what he cares about is winning, getting nominated and winning an election. He doesn’t seem to care very much about the norms of how you conduct yourself in court. And from his point of view, they have violated all those norms. So he’s just going go out there and talk to the TV camera and not even try to convince the judge himself, I mean his lawyers will, but I think he realizes it’s futile.
***
WAJ (04:45): Valuations are a combination of market factors. You have comps, everybody knows when they’re pricing their house. You look for what the comps are selling for. And there are various measurements to do that. And based on what’s in the indictment, I should say in the judge’s findings of fraud, there are some properties where there’s a good argument, maybe it was inflated, he increased the square footage of different properties, things like that. There are others where it’s very murky and it’s unclear. The whole finding that Mar-a-Lago was grossly over inflated was based, the judge said, on what the tax assessor valued the property at. But everybody knows that the tax assessors valuing it for one purpose. It may have market value. That’s another.
And one point Trump made outside the courtroom, which I think is extremely important and valid, is he was dealing with sophisticated people. He wasn’t borrowing money from mom and pop down the street. He was borrowing money from sophisticated banks who probably do their own valuations, have their own internal audit teams, have their own sets of lawyers, and if they’re going to lend him money on a property based on his estimate, I doubt they took his estimate at face value. They probably had their own internal people validate that. You don’t lend somebody tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in a commercial transaction if you’re a major bank unless you have your own internal team vetting that.
The notion that Donald Trump puts a number on a piece of paper and some big bank just says, oh, okay, that’s what it’s worth. That’s not how it works.
And he’s right about that. Fraud, normally you have to show that you actually deceived somebody. They actually relied on what you did. I don’t know that the prosecution here, the state, has proven that. And that’s why I think it was a mistake for the judge to rule on this pre- evidentiary hearings. The judge should have heard the evidence, should have heard the testimony, should have heard all these arguments, and then could have decided the matter. So procedurally, I think that was a huge mistake that may come back to haunt the state on appeal if an appeals court says the judge acted precipitously by deciding these valuation issues based on papers rather than based on live testimony.
***
WAJ (09:06): … I think he referred to it as a business death sentence. I think that’s pretty close to right. I mean, if you’re a major national corporation and you can’t do business in the State of New York and you can’t do business in New York City, the financial hub of the country, it’s going to be very hard for you to do business. Even if you ran a hotel in Florida, you want to be able to take reservations from people in New York City. You want to be able to use booking agencies that are in New York City. You want to be able to use advertising agencies that are in New York City.
So this is completely disproportionate. Nobody is claiming that the Trump organizations were fraudulent organizations. These are legitimate organizations that have legitimate businesses. And one piece of what they did, the State of New York claims, was fraudulent, which was inflating property valuations. But to then bar the entirety of the companies, to destroy this business and this brand because of one thing, where you had sophisticated commercial parties on the other side? Nobody lost a penny. This is not a case where he has alleged to have defrauded people such that they lost money.
This is highly political. I mean he’s absolutely right. Letitia James ran for office for the attorney general on a platform of not only getting Donald Trump but getting his family. She said this, it’s on tape. It’s not a matter of my opinion. It’s I think disgusting that an Attorney [General], someone would run for the highest law enforcement position in a major state, or in any state, on a platform of getting a particular person and their family.
So I think that this is really pretty disgusting. If they wanted to charge him with fraud and penalize him for these appraisals, fine, but to then try to put him out of business, I think shows how political and how vindictive this is.
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Trump got more free publicity today than Biden and all of the Republican candidates combined. To any sane person, this is absurd. If I have a gold watch that I want to sell and I am asking $10,000 but you might find one for a lot less, all I have to say is that I am attached to it emotionally. There is no fraud if you agree to buy it for my price. The banks wanted no part in this trial and they said so. They got their money and no one complained but NY state. If this holds up on appeal, many businesses might decide to leave NY because of this terrible law. I also do not understand how the judge declared him guilty BEFORE the evidence was presented. Is this America?
Dems move in mysterious ways. To your last question, no.
It is the Peoples Republic of New York.
Why does the State of NY have standing to bring this civil suit when there are no victims claiming they were damaged?
Real people claiming damage from unconstitutional changes to voting regulations because of “the covid emergency” were told they didn’t have standing to stop the changes from happening.
Their using an obscure blue sky law enacted in NY in the 1920 called the ‘Martin Act.’ There are quite a few academic papers that have been written on it. The tl;dr is that is was a bad law made worse by the courts and more or less sat on the shelf for decades. Then, Elliot Spitzer breathed life into it, mostly to settle political scores. It has long been thought of as often arbitrary in its application.
They’re, not their. Need an edit button.
Spitzer wasn’t settling political scores, he was extorting money from Wall Street. He made an example or two, and then hit up all the rest of the firms for payment to ensure they wouldn’t be the next victims.
A couple of problems with the civil charges
A) there is no victim, but the statute doesnt require a victim
B) the statute provides for disgorgement of the profits, but there is not finding a profits
C) There is no finding that anyone relied on the inflated appraisals, but the statute doesnt require any reliance on the false statements.
D) the statute suffers from Vagueness
As such, under US Supreme court rulings, the case should be dismissed. Unfortunately, the case is a NY state case and federal wont come into play.
On a separate issue – The personal statements of financial condition are grossly inflated and the accounting firm that prepared those statements knew the values were grossly inflated. As a CPA, I can say that the NY state board of public accountancy should come down hard on the accounting firm. The
The vile Dumb-o-crats dutifully follow the Stalinist Rules of Civil Procedure, in which the “judge” finds the accused guilty before the “trial.”
The judge granted a summary judgement motion by the AG. His reasoning was that the “evidence” of guilt she presented was overwhelming. Summary judgement motions are standard practice. Trump’s lawyers probably filed a summary judgement motion to dismiss the case.
But the Democrats get all those Unreported In-kind donations from Google, Facebook et all.
I still don’t know how they are not forced to report their in-kind donations when they proclaim they brought 6 million votes in for Biden. Can anyone explain that to me?
Because they are not donations, whether in cash or in kind. You’re forgetting the definition of “donation”; something given from one person to another. Donations to candidates’ official campaigns have to be reported, whether in cash or in kind. So if the campaign were to ask Google and Facebook to run an ad for free, and they did so, that would be a donation in kind and would have to be reported, and would be subject to the limits on donations. But that’s not what happened here. Google and Facebook acting on their own and persuading people to vote for their favored candidate is exactly the same as you going out and doing the same; nothing is being given to the campaign, so there is nothing to report and there is no limit on what you can do. Anyone is entitled to campaign for whomever they like; that’s core first amendment protected speech.
“The judge should have heard the evidence, should have heard the testimony, should have heard all these arguments …”
… before delivering the pre-determined verdict.
Sholom Rubashkin did eight years (of a 27-year sentence, until Trump commuted the rest of it) for essentially the same thing. The bank was completely aware of what was happening at the business, and that the numbers on the loan application were not accurate; it approved the loan and was very happy with how he was running things. He was servicing the loan perfectly, and there was every prospect that he would repay it in full and on time, until the government and a federal judge conspired, first to destroy the business’s cash flow and force it into bankruptcy, and then to destroy its resale value so he would not be able to repay the loan. Even after bankruptcy there were genuine bids for the business that would have enabled the loan to be repaid in full, until the prosecutor threatened the bidders and forced them to withdraw, so that the bank would lose and therefore Rubashkin would be guilty of “fraud”. It was a travesty. Trump should have pardoned him, but even commuting the rest of the sentence was one of the best things he did.
The ability of the DOJ/FBI to create criminal conspiracies in direct violation of the law is something the courts need to deal with. There needs to be a mechanism for investigation and charges against corrupt government officials other than “we investigated ourselves and found ourselves innocent”.
Ok
It seems to me the courts are in on it
They certainly were in that case. It was proven that the judge literally conspired with the prosecutor.
And did anything happen to either one?
Nope. They’re both still in office and in all probability still up to the same tricks.
Thanks for that post. Perhaps the most ironic part of his whole saga is that the feds came down on him largely for employing illegals. I truly feel like I’m living in a bizarro world.
Seems that the Rubashkin case involved a lot more than loan property appraisals, https://archive.ph/20130104060749/http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/34460534.html
The federal complaint notes that “…the loan agreement with First Bank required Agriprocessors to deposit customer payments on accounts receivable directly into a designated depository bank account.”
But a federal agent says a search warrant on November 4th found evidence that “…Sholom Rubashkin fraudulently diverted millions of dollars in First Bank collateral…and the scheme resulted in the fraudulent inflation of the value of Agriprocessors’ accounts receivable.”
An informant told federal agents after the immigration raid last May, Rubashkin would divert payments to different accounts in violation of the loan agreement. And after his arrest in October, Rubashkin ordered the records of those alleged fraudulent transactions erased.
The bank knew all about it and didn’t mind, because the loans were being serviced and, absent the government’s deliberate sabotage, would have been paid in full and on time.
I have not read the details, but I can comment on the most discussed allegations that he inflated the values of his properties and his net worth and that caused the banks to lend more at a lower price.
Banks making large loans on commercial real estate must by regulation get independent appraisals that conform with regulations (FIRREA, USPAP) or face the wrath of the regulators – there are strict regulations even on how the appraiser gets picked. In our regular reviews by the federal and state regulators, the appraisals and the related process are invariably looked at.
Based on my nearly 40 years in lending on just about every type and size of asset for several major institutions, no bank like the ones who lend to Trump lends based on an owner’s suggested value, in fact on many loans I approve, I do not even know the owner’s estimate of value as it does not enter into the credit decision. They look at the appraisal and will often adjust that if they think there are assumptions or comps that are optimistic.
Similarly, the statements of net worth are reviewed and generally adjusted downwards based on estimates of actual value, easier to do with developers with well known properties.
The suggestion that banks lent Trump the amounts of money being discussed based solely on his reported values is laughable and I find it hard to believe anyone making the claim does so in good faith.
I have been trying to explain this to people since this story broke.
A person can ‘overvalue’ their property in conversation, but they can’t do it in a lending situation.
Lenders lend on the value THEY DETERMINE for a given asset.
This means that they measured the square footage THEMSELVES. They checked the value of property THEMSELVES.
If the property WAS ‘overvalued’, the lender overvalued it –and they did so because they were reasonably sure the borrower could –and would– repay the funds.
Anyone that has ever refinanced or bought a home knows this. The banks don’t care what you or your real estate agent tell them the property is worth. They will make that determination.
It’s true that the lender uses their own inspector to determine the value of a property, but in my experience as a private buyer and per my realtors, the inspector generally concludes that the property value = the agreed-up sales price. I suppose that might not be true if the price inflation was egregious, but how do you determine that in a market as inflated as San Antonio’s? My current property is valued at over 700K, based entirely on sales of similar properties in my area, which includes multi-million dollar estates. It has nothing to do with the property itself other than the general description.
What is happening to Trump is both incredibly sad & maddening! I sincerely hope that Karma is real & plays it’s revenge on every one involved in this travesty of justice & rewards Trump a return of everything he is losing, tripled. God bless him & any other victim caught in their web.
Of COURSE that’s not how it works. Any actual court of law would ask to see the bank’s independent valuation of the property that they did before granting the loan.
Which is exactly why they did summary judgement. Because any actual trial that allowed facts into evidence would see their pathetic house of cards collapse.
The judge and AG don’t care. They’re going to get their precious conviction, and they don’t CARE if its overturned on appeal. Because neither of them will face any consequences for being overturned.
“neither of them will face any consequences”
Creative people should be finding a way to make sure they face devastating consequences. This kind of stuff has to be severely punished.
Maybe the judge’s bank sho0uld deem him a “high risk” and close his accounts. The prosecutor, too. (Because I think the banks are being hurt by this stupid legal action, too.)
You know, like they’re doing with gun companies, FFLs, ‘conservative’ Brits, Canadian truckers, etc.
(Yes, I know the last two aren’t American, but they make good examples.)
This falls under “the process is the punishment” school of jurisprudence. And tarnish him at least though Nov 4 2024. That’s all they care about.
I expect folks to begin showing deepfake pictures of him eating babies.
Halloween comes early
Amazing the only ones without standing are the ones bringing the case
I have to side with Trump on this one. Real estate pricing is what someone will pay on any given day. In Florida you pay property tax based on the sales price less the homestead exemption. The property tax increases are capped at 3% per
annum. What the assessment is and what the home value is are 2 different things. My home purchased 19 years ago has an assessed value of 445k. It has a market value of 1.75 million. For me to accept an offer (I’m not selling) it would have to have a 2 as the starting number. (I live on a golf course) So in NY I’m guilty. In Florida I’m smart. FJB
William A. Jacobson: And one piece of what they did, the State of New York claims, was fraudulent, which was inflating property valuations.
The fraud was continuous over the course of years. The reason why shutting down the business makes sense is because that seems to be the only way to prevent the fraud from continuing. Trump probably could have worked out a deal, but he’s incapable of admitting error or changing his behavior.
inspectorudy: I also do not understand how the judge declared him guilty BEFORE the evidence was presented.
Like in all such cases, evidence is submitted before trial. If the defense doesn’t raise substantial defenses, then the judge can make a summary judgment.
If you read the judgment, it’s clear that Trump failed to provide evidentiary support for his valuations. They argued, in essence and contrary to law, that Trump’s gut valuations have validity. Tripling the physical size of his personal condo was particularly egregious.
They do. It’s not contrary to law. Trump is at least as much of an expert on this topic as any valuer. And he’s certainly more of an expert than the judge or the AG. How do you justify the ridiculously low amount the judge claimed Mar-a-Lago is worth?
Milhouse: They do.
According to that standard, a business or person could just make up numbers for their financial statement.
The courts have determined that valuation must be an objectively reasonable conclusion based on credible evidence. Trump’s puffery does not meet that qualification. Also, Trump ignored his own professional appraisals; considered property values without covenant restrictions; and imagined some future value that cannot be the basis for current value.
When it comes to property valuations, yes, they can and do.
Which courts have “determined” that, and on what basis?
He had every right to ignore “his own professionals”; they are advisors, not dictators, and his own expertise is at least as good as theirs. And what do you think current value consists of, if not future value discounted for time?
Milhouse: When it comes to property valuations, yes, they can and do.
No. You can’t make up stuff about money when making deals involving money. You can’t represent to the bank that you are a millionaire if you are objectively not. “But I got high hopes!”
Milhouse: Which courts have “determined” that, and on what basis?
It’s settled law. In New York, for instance, Assured Guaranty Mun. Corp. v. DLJ Mortg. Capital, Inc: “It is well settled that this is an objective standard.”
“Psst. You wanna buy a watch or mortgage-backed security. It’s worth a fortune, but I need the money so I’ll give you a deal.”
It’s cognitive dissonance invading the law.
No amount of evidence can overcome it – the signs are ad hominem rebuttals instead of anything to the point.
The tax assessor is doing land and buildings, the banks are doing value as an ongoing business plus that. The value as an ongoing business is the total of all the earnings it will ever have, discounted to the present time. That’s usually much bigger.
Nobody hurt isn’t, for all that, exactly right. Trump would have, in their scenario, caused the banks to run a bigger risk than they planned to take, even if they finally got paid.
Like a fiduciary putting a widow in cattle futures, even if it pays off like it did for Hillary.
Even so, no bank claimed injury. I understand that the state can sue civilly in the stead of an injured party, but this prosecution appears to be based on what “Trump did” rather than his actions having caused an injury in fact. If the banks had been injured by Trump, surely they would have sued, or would have supported the state’s case. They did neither.
How do you get standing to sue when nobody (including the state) has made a claim upon which the court is able to grant relief? How is “relief” possible when there is no injury-in-fact?
What about ”standing”? Are bureaucrats exempt from that requirement? This whole thing stinks to high heaven. Just curious.
The law gives the AG standing. It’s a bad law, but that’s what it does.
Really would have been nice for the ‘Professor’ to acknowledge those of us who were explaining this to him days ago –before he looked around and noticed that enough people were expaing standard lending procedure that he could add his voice without looking like he’d given up the TDS that so pervades LI.
Just because the banks didn’t complain doesn’t mean fraud was not committed. What matters is if the banks knew Trump was inflating the value of the real estate in question, would they have acted differently and not gone through the trouble and expense to service the loan?
But that is a point of fact which only a jury can determine. For a judge to determine a point of fact without any testimony or evidence and instead rely on the state’s complaint is a travesty of the justice system.
It doesn’t matter what Trump’s opinion was. Federal regulators require the banks to have an independent appraisal by a certified appraiser on every loan. So, they had an independent opinion of fair market value before they made the loan.
Yes, this is a travesty. The judge granted the AG’s summary judgement motion based on her “evidence” submitted to his court. So, it’s all legal until it gets to the appellate court where, hopefully, it will be overturned.
The point is that businesses can commit fraud without the victim knowing about it (happens all the time, which is why there are mass mailings of judgements to potential victims) and therefore the state has a duty to step in and sue. But to present the findings to a judge who then takes it as evidence on its face of fraud without a defense or a jury deliberation is the travesty. Sure, the AG can sue Trump’s holdings; however without Trump having a day in court and then order his businesses dissolved is a hallmark of tyranny.
“The point is that businesses can commit fraud without the victim knowing about it (happens all the time, which is why there are mass mailings of judgements to potential victims) and therefore the state has a duty to step in and sue.”
Although true, even your example is of situations in which people were actually harmed. You can’t make someone “whole” who has not been damaged.
“Your honor, the bad man hoodwinked me.”
“Did you suffer an injury?”
“No, I did not.”
“Then what do you want the court to do? Punish someone for gaining an advantage for himself without damage to yourself?”
In those cases you still had to find an actual victim to bring the class action on behalf of all other victims. The AG has no standing to bring the action sua sponte. The only reason this case is proceeding is because of that bad NY law that sat on the books for decades but nobody took advantage of until Spitzer.
I’m not a lawyer or a businessman. I suspect I am the target of these machinations, in the sense that I am a typical voter expected to believe the Left’s narrative simply because of my lack of expertise.
But I didn’t just fall off the back of a turnip truck. When the AG promises to “get” a political opponent and then proceeds to do just that I see it as political skulduggery no matter how many legal terms are thrown up in the air. FFS their dishonesty is written all over their faces.
“I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.”
And, yes, they’re trying to railroad you into relying on your feelings (“Trump is Orange Man Bad”) and to simply trust the “experts” (like judges and prosecutors).
“I was born a poor black child.”
So if Trump had carried through on his promise to “lock her up”, by appointing a prosecutor to go through the evidence and, if he found a crime that could still be charged, bring those charges, would you have said the same thing? Sometimes it is legitimate to promise to get someone, because you’re already reasonably certain they’ve done something wrong. Sometimes you get elected precisely because people are upset that someone is getting away with brazen crimes, and they want you to do something about it. The test is not whether the AG promised in advance to bring charges, but whether the charges themselves stand up on their own merit (including whether they would be brought against anyone else who did the same thing). In this case they don’t seem to.
(1) The “fix” is obviously in when a judge says the accused can’t put on a defense. So Trump’s strategy of pointing out a “fixed” system and making the persecution as politically painful to Democrats as possible seems not too bad a way to attempt to mitigate the overall damage.
(2) The idea that Trump should be respectful to a “fixed” system because there is a formal process that MAY ensure ultimate justice is ridiculous. That’s fine for anyone who has millions for defense, but it’s still ripping him off, and it’s nonsense to call this a system of justice. It’s simply a system of procedures that may or may not result in justice. I hate it when a person is financially destroyed mounting a successful defense, then some arrogant prosecutor crows about how the system worked.
(3) I don’t see any justice where there is no deceit—certainly none that was relied on by lenders, no lender-complainants, no financial damages, and yet the state call the prosecution fraud and seeks to claim a windfall for itself.
(4) There is also no justice in a purely political prosecution that finds a way to use the courts as its instruments for looting and persecution.
“…it’s nonsense to call this a system of justice. It’s simply a system of procedures that may or may not result in justice.”
Bingo.
The Wall Street Journal today has this right-an example of clear thinking. Yes, it’s a witch hunt, and yes there can be fraud and a compelling reason to prosecute it even if only the state, but no particular entity is victimized. It all comes down to the worthless clause in the contracts. If the worthless clause be itself worthless, Trump committed fraud.
For those of you (most), not following the case, how many of you would attest that your 3,300 square foot home, in which you lived for 20 years, was 10,000 square feet? And, how many of you would not worry about getting into some trouble over this even if your loan payments be current? And, when caught, how many of you would claim that square footage is a subjective measure?
It doesn’t matter. Every lending institution has an independent fee appraisal by a certified appraiser they hire on every loan they make. The fee appraiser includes that information in the appraisal. Every tax assessor/ administrator has a file created by their appraisal staff with the measurements in it. No, square footage is not a subjective measure, but you can be wrong if you don’t pull a tape and actually take the measurement.
Trump stated his 10,000 square foot personal residence was 30,000 square feet- end of story! Just because it’s an easy-to-check, gross lie doesn’t make it ok because you love Trump and hate the deep state.
If the lie had zero impact on the approval of the loan, who is harmed?
It shouldn’t matter to the case. But it does matter in a moral sense.
Lying is wrong, even if it isn’t illegal (in which the only cases of lying that are bad are fraud [in the broadest sense] and slander – because they harm someone).
I will state for the record that I can see Trump saying, “10,000 square feet? Pfft. To hold my hair, it’s gotta be at least twice that! You measured it wrong! Write down 30,000 just to be on the safe side.” And, in his favor, to hold his ego (and hair) it would have to be bigger than that. 😉
Gaining advantage for oneself, without harming others, is wrong? People do it all the time, in every field of human endeavor. In some such fields (e.g. warfare), doing so and intentionally causing harm is the point.
And how many times does it have to be explained that no financial institution would take valuation of any property or business at face-value as stated by the property/business owner, and not do their own assessment? What the state is proposing in this prosecution is preposterous.
As a trial lawyer for 40 of the 50 years of practice there’s no other area of the law more filled with other worldly variations of “expert” opinion than valuation. Two simple, personal examples. First, I bought a commercial building which had been on the market for 5 years. Tax appraisers promptly valued it at 4X the purchase price. Second, my son bought a commercial building from a bank and tax appraisers immediately valued it at 6X his purchase price. Unless money has been lost due to a plainly fraudulent appraisal it’s unbelievable that an action has been commenced. In fact, many of the most dishonest appraisals emanate from taxing authorities.
Let me add that the worst appraisal offenders aren’t even the taxing authorities. The government sanctioned condemning authorities are even worse. In one jury trial we recovered 20X the condemning authority’s appraisals and another, a bench trial 70X. There are many, many examples, including one dismissed by an authority on the day before trial where it seemed a near certainty that we’d hit them for 200X. I’m not making this stuff up.
It’s pretty obvious to everyone that this is the most ridiculous of all the crazy cases against Trump. Anyone who owns a home knows real property can have multiple values (cost, tax assessed, FMV), and banks make there own determination about what value to use and how much it is. This judge is saying he knows more about real estate than Trump and the banks that lend him money. He’s a lefty crackpot.
And, he obviously knows nothing about real estate law.
I’m seeing over at twitchy that 80% of the case has been ditched because of statute of limitations 😂 The rest to follow tomorrow? 🤔
Regarding Trump’s Statements of Financial Conditions, Mark Pomeranz, the former contractor for the District Attorney NY, said that the DANY was all poised to press charges against Trump for tax evasion. The premise was that the valuation provided by the Trump organization to the tax assessor were fraudulently low and therefore the tax assessed was fraudulently low. Then someone had the bright idea to ask the tax assessor for the basis of the property tax. It turned out, no surprise to anyone paying property tax, that the tax assessor’s office uses their own assessment and ignores any valuation from the property owners. The case just imploded.
Pomeranze goes on to express dismay that the Trump organization’s loans to Deutchs Bank were re-payed and therefore there was no possibility of fraud for with Trump’s SOFC. Again, no one seems to have bothered to have asked Deutchs Bank how they performed due diligence in their loan process.
Everyone polishes their apples. Trump seems to have raised this to a higher level. But for inflating property values to be a crime, it seems to me that the other party needs to rely on this inflated value. If the other party solely relies on unconfirmed valuations for a financial transaction, then to my mind they are grossly incompetent.
So what is the crime here? For this to be fraud someone must be the victim? Surely that victim would be the financial institutions who lent the money? Yet those loans were repaid and repaid with interest?!? So again, what is the crime and who was the victim?
Fifth Amendment (paraphrased): No person shall be deprived property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The judge has effectively engaged in a taking by removing the right to do business. Is New York going to compensate Trump?
Questions of valuation are extraordinarily difficult, said the Supreme Court, in allowing takings by zoning without compensation, so long as at least 10% of the property’s value remains.
It’s his business that is being taken, not his real estate, unless he is forced to sell at a loss because of the taking.
The counter-argument (not that I don’t disagree with it) is that the court is providing the “due process of law” to which Trump is entitled, and can make the “taking,” having met the requirements of the 5th Amendment.
Discover, Zillow, my insurance company, and my county property appraiser all list different values for my property.
If I apply for a home equity loan, which should I use to avoid getting prosecuted?
In reality, if a bank gives a loan based on the customer’s stated value, they must agree with it or at least think it is reasonable within normal market variations.
The real value is only knowable when you have an offer that is accepted. Anything else is just an educated guess or a wild guess.
What are the financial statement filing requirements Trump is subject to? I’m from NZ and there are auditing issues etc that would be in play here. That means the “fraud” would need the valuers and auditors and accountants to be accessories. While we have onerous reporting requirements for large companies, if they aren’t publicly accountable etc they don’t have to be filed with anyone. Again, this is an example of why it’s entirely possible that there was zero fraud (there wouldn’t be under NZ law) but as I said, I don’t know how the US works.
For banks, the only things that would be relevant for their decision are profitability, cash flows and leverage (which would be adjusted by their valuations).
Trump’s statement that his valuations are for his use only does actually seem entirely correct.
Again, this is from a foreigner though.
Sun Tzu argues in The Art of War to remove your enemy’s capacity to fight. Trump has a nearly endless war chest that allows him to flight litigation and criminal charges on multiple fronts. If I was charged on 91 counts and several civil lawsuits across different states and federal court districts, my only defense would be to find the most devastating place to light myself on fire. My capacity to fight would end instantly because my resources would dry up. But Trump won’t run out of money unless a court takes it all away. That’s what this is. It’s Lawfare designed to make it impossible for him to fight back. And they’re hoping armed Americans come rushing to his defense because it then proves the existence of right wing extremists and enabled severe curtailments of liberty. Covid was a test run.
Just think about the all attack by Federal Law Enforcement – DOJ, FBI, IRS,
the odious thug who heads up DHS for Biden on hundreds of Trump supporters – this is out and out, overt Political Persecution and even imprisonment! They have “investigated” President Trump steadily beginning during his campaign and all during his presidential term, and ever since. They Dream up crimes after searching every nook and cranny, threatening his supporters in order to get them to say something, anything to incriminate him – THIS IS HAPPENING IN THE USA!
Just think about the all attack by Federal Law Enforcement – DOJ, FBI, IRS,
the odious thug who heads up DHS for Biden on hundreds of Trump supporters – this is out and out, overt Political Persecution and even imprisonment! They have “investigated” President Trump steadily beginning during his campaign and all during his presidential term, and ever since. They Dream up crimes after searching every nook and cranny, threatening his supporters in order to get them to say something, anything to incriminate him – THIS IS HAPPENING IN THE USA! Do democrats think this is OK? not dangerous to the freedom of all Americans? This NY thing is absurd, one doesn’t need to be a lawyer to have some idea how business loans work, nobody he borrowed from complained, he paid the debts back – HOW DID THEY GET THIS INTO A COURTROOM? New Yorkers should be horrified as such idiocy representing them to the world!!