The activist judge who issued a stunning devaluation of former President Donald Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago estate was in good spirits Monday before the New York fraud trial began.
State prosecutors representing the New York attorney general’s office accused the real estate mogul of artificial asset inflation to obtain financial benefits such as generous loan terms. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned on a platform to prosecute Trump, filed the $250 million civil case last year.
“For too long, powerful, wealthy people in this country have operated as if the rules do not apply to them. Donald Trump stands out as among the most egregious examples of this misconduct,” James said in a press release when filing the suit.
The lawsuit piles on to the cascade of litigation handed down to the former president during his third run for the White House. Beyond civil fraud charges wherein conviction would expel him from doing business in New York, Democrats are seeking jail time with 91 counts across federal and local indictments. The fraud charges, on their own, represent how Democrats have turned to lawfare to strip political opponents of livelihoods.
Last week, 74-year-old Justice Arthur F. Engoron of the New York Supreme Court 1st Judicial District in Manhattan found the Republican presidential frontrunner liable for illegally inflating assets in a summary judgment. In his ruling, Justice Engoron claimed the former president’s finances “clearly contain fraudulent valuations.” One such valuation, Engoron concluded was inflated, was the Trump palace at Mar-a-Lago,
