Good riddance.
Originally Posted by 1blackman1
Thanks, 1b1... this one's for you... an update on the outrageous Engeron-James kangaroo trialf verdict, which is being appealed.
It's not looking good for those far-left reprobates (like Letitia James and Arthur Engeron) who are hell-bent on twisting, abusing and weaponizing the legal system to seize assets & businesses owned by their political opponents.
New Doubts About Trump’s Fraud Verdict
Appellate judges say New York Attorney General Letitia James may have exceeded her legal authority.
By Editorial Board
Sept. 29, 2024 3:50 pm ET
The Democratic Party’s lawfare strategy to defeat Donald Trump took another blow last week, not that it received much media attention. Three prosecutions have already hit snags, and now a
New York appellate court has expressed considerable doubt about Attorney General Letitia James’s $489 million fraud prosecution and verdict.
A five-judge appellate panel on Thursday heard Mr. Trump’s appeal of a lower-court judge’s penalty for allegedly inflating the value of his real-estate assets to obtain better loan terms. Ms. James’s lawsuit was unusual since nobody claimed to be harmed by the former President’s alleged legerdemain, which is ordinarily required in fraud cases.
Several appellate judges noted as much. “I’m sorry, what’s being described sounds an awful lot like a potential commercial dispute between private actors,” Justice John Higgitt noted. It seems, he mused, that the
AG is “going into an area that wasn’t intended for her jurisdiction.” He suggested the court may need to impose “guardrails” on the AG’s power.
Justice David Friedman concurred: “You’ve got two really sophisticated parties in which no one lost any money.” Prior cases brought under the state civil fraud law involved corporate actions with large numbers of putative victims, such as banks bilking customers. “You don’t have anything like that here,” Justice Friedman said.
“There has to be some
limitation on what the Attorney General can do in interfering in these private transactions where people don’t claim harm,” said Justice Peter Moulton. He added that “the
immense penalty in this case is troubling” given that the “parties left these transactions happy about how things went down.”
Ms. James literally campaigned for her office on a pledge to prosecute Mr. Trump for something. Her method is
select an unpopular target first, then look for evidence to file charges. Trial Judge Arthur Engoron also allowed some highly dubious estimates of Mr. Trump’s allegedly ill-gotten gains.
The job of appellate courts is to take a detached look at how the law is applied to protect due process, especially for politically unpopular defendants. Doing so in this case is crucial for the rule of law and future defendants in New York state.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/new-doub...dges-3e0a999e?
