Get Out of New York, If You Can
My parents’ parents were born and lived in New York. My parents were born and lived in New York. I was born and grew up in New York, went to college in New York, and returned to New York after law school for a decade. My children were born in New York. Some of my grandchildren were born in New York. I work in New York and live part of the year in New York.
At one time, I even had an “I ♥ NY” t-shirt.
Now I’m counting down the years until I retire from Cornell and can leave New York completely and for good, never to look back.
It’s not ‘just’ the taxes, moribund bureaucracies, regulatory madness, weak economy, crime, sanctuary city policies, and embrace of de-policing and non-prosecution. That would be and is bad enough, and already is depopulating the state.
It’s something more now. Rough politics has given way to the political weaponization of prosecutors’ offices. It’s dangerous and sets a tone for the entire state that political opponents of those in power are living – and operating their businesses – on borrowed time.
I don’t care what you think of Donald Trump, it’s disgusting, unseemly, and in my view completely unethical for a prosecutor to run for office pledging not only to get a political opponent, but also his family. That’s what Letitia James did when she ran for New York Attorney General. She then fulfilled that campaign promise, weaponizing her massive and powerful office to scour through Trump’s businesses to find a crime, but she found none that could be prosecuted so she brought a civil lawsuit to ruin Trump and his family.
Nothing about this process was within norms of how prosecutors should conduct themselves and their offices. It may not be unprecedented, but it’s still clearly wrong.
I don’t think the civil lawsuit had merit and predict it will be reversed on appeal, at least as to the outlandish fines imposed, but that’s besides the point. The lawsuit never would have been brought if James had not targeted Trump with the full weight of the NY Attorney General’s office specifically because she didn’t like his politics.
I wonder if James could legally survive having her entire life scrutinized the way she scrutinized Trump’s life. I wonder if anyone could.
But it wasn’t just James, it also was Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who promised during his campaign to get Trump. And he also followed through, with criminal charges that will be going to trial in late March 2024 based on a convoluted legal theory to convert stale misdemeanor books and records charges into felonies which then were ‘tolled’ under an Executive Order, resulting in the case filed a year ago that never would have been brought if not for the target being Donald Trump. I predict that the charges will not survive appeal if there is a conviction, but that is besides the point. The massive New York County (Manhattan) District Attorney’s Office was weaponized against a political opponent who never would have been targeted if not for the politics.
This cannot be written off as “there the Democrats go again.” Rhode Island, where I live when not in New York, is even more Democrat than New York, but the Democrats here are mostly interested in lining their pockets and pensions and steering business to political friends. Rhode Island Democrats, for whatever else they are, are not nearly as vicious and vindictive as the New York Democrats currently in control of the state. Something has gone very wrong in New York.
But wait, New York Governor Kathy Hochul says not to worry, the business execution of Donald Trump is just a Donald Trump thing, others need not worry:
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) addressed New York business owners in a new interview and told them there was “nothing to worry about” after former President Trump was hit with a $355 million fine and a ban on conducting business in New York for three years.Hochul joined John Catsimatidis on “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM, where she was asked if other New York businesspeople should be worried that if “they can do that to the former president, they can do that to anybody.”“I think that this is really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance that the law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are business people have nothing to worry about, because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior,” Hochul responded….The governor provided reassurance to New York businesses after the ruling. “By and large, they are honest people and they’re not trying to hide their assets and they’re following the rules,” she said of the people who own and conduct business in the New York City area.
That Hochul is even giving such an explanation is tantamount to an admission of the unusual nature of the effort to get Trump. Just follow the rules and you’ll be okay, until you are subjected to our inquisition and found not to be completely following a rule.
This is not about Donald Trump. It’s about a state that is becoming unlivable in so many ways. On top of all that, the loss of prosecutorial norms is more than any business or individual in the state should have to risk. The price of living in and doing business in New York should not be that you have to be politically obedient.
Not everyone can leave the state now. Including me. But develop an exit plan before you need it.
[Featured Image: Letitia James running for Attorney General, via YouTube]
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