In the latest episode of lawfare irony, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron committed the very same financial fraud that he ruled former President Trump engaged in: economic overvaluation. The main difference is that Judge Engoron’s fraud has actual victims — Trump, the Trump organization, and the American people. Trump’s alleged fraud did not.
You are probably familiar with the basic facts of the Trump civil fraud case. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned on a Third World-esque platform targeting a specific political enemy, Trump, launched civil fraud proceedings against the Trump organization under what in essence is a New York consumer protection statute. Those are laws enacted to protect the “little guy” from fraud in consumer transactions.
James alleged that Trump overestimated — because you cannot calculate, you can only estimate — the value of real estate and other holdings that the Trump organization used to secure commercial loans. Apparently, James believed that “little guys” such as Deutsche Bank, with a market capitalization of $26 billion, needed her assistance in their loan business. They of course do not. You know this if you ever took out a mortgage. It’s shown in the mortgage disclosure form under “Appraisal Fee.” You see, banks perform their own valuation estimates even when they lend only a few hundred thousand dollars. They do more thorough estimates when they loan tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.
That brings us to Engoron, the man who decided the Trump case and committed financial
