A MAJOR WIN AS TRUMP SEEKS TO UNDO LAWFARE’S DAMAGE. Things happen quickly in the second Trump administration, and the political world is buzzing about the FBI raid on the Bethesda, Maryland, home of former national security adviser John Bolton. But let’s wait a while to learn more about what is going on. Right now, it’s important not to miss a major development in the Democratic lawfare against Trump that dominated the time between his first and second terms.
The lawfare campaign, involving criminal charges and civil lawsuits, was launched by elected Democratic prosecutors in Manhattan, New York State, and Georgia, as well as by appointees of the Biden administration in Washington. (In Colorado and other states, elected Democrats tried to disqualify Trump for office under the 14th Amendment.) The actions sought to 1) put Trump in prison; 2) otherwise make it impossible for him to run for, or serve, as president; and/or 3) destroy his business empire.
That last goal was the point of a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James in September 2022. The suit alleged that, a decade earlier, Trump inflated the estimated value of his properties when applying for bank loans. Prosecutors conceded that Trump had paid off all his loans in a timely manner; nobody, including the public at large, had lost any money in this alleged fraud. However, James alleged, and trial judge Arthur Engoron agreed, that Trump should pay a high price for something Engoron called a “venial sin,” a minor infraction. So Engoron, a Democratic donor, ordered Trump to pay a $355 million fine, the legal term is “disgorgement,” which, with interest, quickly grew to $450 million and was recently headed toward $500 million. (James structured the case so that Trump did not have the right to a jury trial, meaning Engoron alone determined Trump’s “guilt” and penalty.)
The news now is that on Thursday, a New York appeals court threw out Engoron’s $450 million-plus penalty. All of it. The verdict itself, that is, the ruling against Trump, has not been thrown out, although that might happen when the case goes to the state’s highest appeals court. But the crippling money penalty is gone.
There were five judges on the appeals court, and each seemed to have a different view of the case. One said the lawsuit should never have been brought in the first place. Two said it was tried so badly by James’s office and adjudicated so badly by Engoron that it should be sent back for a new trial. And two said the verdict should stand, at least until the highest state court has a chance to consider it.
But even with their disagreements on the suit itself, all five judges agreed that Engoron’s penalty was so excessive that it violated the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which says that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
The appeals court opinion is 323 pages long. I will not read the whole thing, and I doubt you will, either. It includes helpful summaries of the judges’ positions and a discussion of the issues. For you skimmers out there, try searching the text for the word “excessive.” You’ll get a lot of hits.
“The court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” wrote Justices Peter Moulton and Dianne Renwick. In another part: “Is the disgorgement levied against the defendants an excessive fine barred by the Eighth Amendment? We believe that it is.” And: “A fine is excessive when it is ‘grossly disproportional to the gravity of the defendant’s offense’ … While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half-billion-dollar award to the state.”
Trump was delighted with the result, of course. “TOTAL VICTORY in the FAKE New York State Attorney General Letitia James case!” he wrote on Truth Social. “Everything I did was absolutely CORRECT and, even, PERFECT. Every single dollar was thrown out.”
Now what? The case will now go to New York’s highest appeals court for one final look. Who knows what will happen, but we know that a five-judge panel unanimously favored throwing out the massive financial penalty at this level of appeal. Also, a majority, three judges, favored either a new trial or throwing the case out altogether. If Letitia James is seeking vindication, those do not seem to be hopeful signs.
As far as Trump is concerned, the decision is a big step forward in the effort to reverse the James lawsuit. There is a long way still to go, but it’s a big step.
And then there are the other lawfare cases. In the big picture, remember this: Between March and August 2023, three Democratic prosecutors filed 91 felony charges against Trump. A Democratic law enforcement official, AG James, pursued a nearly half-billion-dollar lawsuit to destroy his business empire. Other officials went to court to disqualify him from the presidency. Others have still pursued legal action against him for different reasons. Now, Trump is trying to undo some of the immense damage done by that lawfare campaign. So far, he is making progress.