MouthBQ98 said:
eric76 said:
Reality Check said:
eric76 said:
captkirk said:
eric76 said:
Stat Monitor Repairman said:
Trump might think about seeking emergency relief on constitutional grounds.
Hire a team of law professors to construct an argument rooted in the 8th amendment, with the key distinguishing factor being that judgment creditor is the State of New York.
We ain't talking about Texaco-Pennzoil here where two companies were fighting with each other over a circumstance of their own making.
Here we are dealing with the State imposing an excessive fine on an individual for the arbitrary reason of prosecuting a political opponent.
Isn't the amount for the disgorgement of undeserved profits rather than a fine or punishment? That's a big difference. It's hard to see how the Eighth Amendment would cover such a disgorgement.
And Trump with his bluster and stupid antics makes it easy for the justice systems of the various states and the federal government to go after him. He is hardly not responsible for what is happening.
It might or might not be heavy handed. If so, that is presumably something for the appeals court. Remember that appeals courts look for errors in law -- they don't normally reexamine the facts of the case.
There were no undeserved profits. The bank testified it did not rely on Trump's estimation of values when making the loan or setting the rate of interest.
That may be, but the award is, I think, listed as a disgorgement, not a fine. If it was written as a fine, then the Eighth Amendment might actually apply. As a disgorgement, I don't think that it would.
A disgorgement requires illegal conduct... not just being the target of a partisan AG and a Democrat hack sitting on the bench.
Fraud is an illegal conduct.
Whether or not the decision stands remains to be seen, but that does not mean that Trump gets to make that determination.
Fraud is also not arbitrarily defined based on the political needs of the court and the DA. If it is so, then all those engaged in New York real estate transactions should be in considerable fear if they have the wrong politics, or are just a valuable or lucrative target.
Trump has lived by lawfire most, possibly all, of his adult life. He has reportedly been involved in 3,500 lawsuits, many as plaintiff and many as defendant.
He has used lawfare as bully tactics over and over again. That even includes the case where he wanted to force an older woman to sell her house to the casino so that they could replace it with a parking lot.
So considering his extensive past of refusing to pay people or paying them much less than the agreed amount and of other bullying lawsuits, I don't have the least bit of sympathy for him.
There might be nobody more worthy of the plight that Trump is now facing than Trump.
That said, I didn't follow the trial very close. My tendency is to think that the judge did things correctly and most the remarks on here are just sour grapes. It's the Appeals Court's job to determine if there was judicial error and I'll be happy with their decision no matter what it is.
As for the amount of the bond, that's Trump's cost of doing business. I don't owe any more sympathy to Trump than he would have for me if I was in the same predicament.