The statute is Section 63, part 12 of the New York Executive Law. You can find it here.
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/EXC/63
The purpose of the statute is to grab revenue for the state of New York and to score political points for the attorney general. It was used to sue Exxon for allegedly failing to disclose risks associated with global warming to shareholders. New York extracted billions for the state's coffers from banks and insurance companies with Section 63(12). Elliott Spitzer used it to turbocharge his political career. If you want to claim fraud with scanty evidence then 63(12)'s your friend. You only have to prove the defendant engaged in "persistent deception, misrepresentation, concealment, suppression, false pretense, false promise, or unconscionable contractual provisions."
Google it and you'll see there are attorneys and others who dislike Trump but believe Letitia James is really stretching, going for $370 million and trying to get Trump's businesses kicked out of New York. The law allows for restitution and damages but is $370 million reasonable considering no one suffered damage? It's also questionable whether the court has the power to kick Trump out of New York, even though Engoron initially set out to do that after he issued his partial summary judgement.
One of the reasons the United States of America is so successful is because we have rule of law. People like you invest and create businesses believing government won't steal from them. This New York statute and the way the AG uses it, for political purposes and to generate revenue, is more indicative of countries where authoritarianism, crony capitalism, or populism predominates.
And yeah, Republicans do this shit too. For example DeSantis and Disney. I think the Democrats are worse though.
Originally Posted by Tiny
Excellent post; agree 100%.
For starters, how many real estate developers have you ever known who haven't claimed some rather "blue-sky" valuations when pitching deals to investors and lenders? There have been plenty of guys in Dallas who, for decades, have been something along the lines of junior varsity versions of "The Donald." And I've never heard of any of them being hauled before a court of law, only to find a judge capriciously trying to deny them the right to continue operating their businesses, and to separate them from something on the order of 15-20% of their net worth to boot.
Further, if Donald had committed fraudulent acts of a sufficiently egregious nature as to warrant this level of attention by the New York State attorney general, don't you think any of several lenders would have brought an action against the Trump Organization by now, and that it would have been very well publicized?
Anyone who is even passingly familiar with finance knows very well that lenders, especially large lenders of the sort who loaned against Trump properties, conduct rigorous due diligence and are in a better position than anyone to know what the hell the market values of these assets are.
Perhaps most ridiculous of all is that if the AG's office were actually interested in protecting these "naive" lenders from being duped by a sharp operator like Donald, why would they seek to force Donald to disgorge a high percentage of his net worth; an amount that he almost certainly cannot raise without offering many of his holdings at reduced prices in a difficult market? After all, wouldn't that be likely to put downward pressure on Donald's holdings and potentially increase the risk that some of the loans could dip into non-performing status, even if they weren't likely to do so absent the need to liquidate some assets?
None of this is remotely justified or makes any sense, unless your goal is to pull every kitchen sink out of every plumbing supply house in America and throw it at him.
And I say this as someone who (to say the least) isn't much of a fan of Donald.