What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[The Minsky Moment]

Reliance IS NOT A REQUIRED ELEMENT of the civil claim brought by the AG.  It does not matter whether the banks relied or even if they were harmed. 

This is a public offense not a private damages action. And there is reason for that.  The commercial RE market is broken in places like NYC because of principal/agent problems and time lags.  Which is why guys like Macklowe etc. can get huge loans despite declaring bankruptcy multiple times.  So the state reserves the right to enforce fraud even if the banks don't protect themselves.  Especially because the banks don't.

That said, valuation is an art and it is pretty easy to get away with a lot unless you are completely egregious and shamless like Trump.

[Razgovory]

Trump just got a gag order.  He attacked one of the clerks and the Judge was unhappy with that.

[The Minsky Moment]

There is one and only one thing that is more stupid than attacking the judge in your case: attacking the judge's law clerk.

[jimmy olsen]

Do banks and insurers not have appraisers they can use. Who relies on the owner's estimate of value?

The defense lawyers have already raised this point.

This case is weak.   

He's already been found guilty, can't be that weak.

[Admiral Yi]

I don't think that's right Timmy.  I think the judge has found that the valuations put on loan applications were inflated.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Fh50HkGMq38

Retiring Chairman of the JCS pisses on Donny.

[Syt]

[Syt]

Trump continues to argue his case calmly and politely.

[mongers]

So when is Trump/the Goptards going to weaponise Biden's dogs attack White House staff?

[The Minsky Moment]

Quick primer on commercial fraud law in NY.  New York has long been a mecca for business fraud, since the days of the robber barons.  Accordingly, the state has enacted a broad and unique set of anti-fraud legislation over the years.

Most basic is "common law fraud" - which is the unwritten law of fraud, tracing roots back to Britain.  This requires proving a bunch of different elements including: false statements, damages, causation, intentionality, and reliance by the victim. Common law fraud claims can be made by private individuals or the state.

General Business Law 349/350 - these are written laws (statutes) banning deceptive practices by a business.  Again, these claims can be made by private individuals or the state.  However, the law has been interpreted as applying only to "consumer-related" conduct.  That may explain Trump's comment about "Consumer Fraud."  Except the claim against him that he lost was not GBL 349.  Instead it was:

Executive Law 63(12) and the Martin Act - these are very broad written laws (statutes) giving the NYAG wide authority to bring civil cases against business fraud.  Claims brought by the AG are not limited to consumer conduct. And many of the elements required to prove common law fraud are NOT required under these laws:

+ The state is not required to prove intentionality.  It is not a defense to say that you genuinely believed that statement you made was true.
+ The state is not required to prove reliance.  It is not a defense to say that the banks should have known better or even that the banks gave no credence to the value representations.
+ The state is not required to prove damages and causation.  Is not a defense to argue that the banks were not harmed and suffered no losses.

What does the state need to prove?  Under the Martin Act, that it made a false statement that was material.  "Material" just means that subject matter of the false statement was of significance, not that anyone relied on it or used it.  That's it.

Yi above seems to think the AG case is weak.  That is understandable because like most other reasonably informed people, he probably has a basic sense that a fraud case normally requires proving that lies were told intentionally, that victims were harmed and/or relied on the false statements.  That it usually correct BUT NOT FOR THE MARTIN ACT.

The NYAG case vs Trump was/is not weak, it is almost ridiculously strong.  All they had to do was prove that Trump provided statements of value that were false.  And the falsity of those statements was effectively an uncontested fact in the case.  Trump's lawyers argued that the contemporaneous appraisals underestimated true value but did not offer any contrary appraisals that could support the inflated values.  Instead they argued that "objective value" is an illusory concept.  That is not a viable defense.

Can Trump fairly complain that Exec Law 63 and the Martin Act are too broad?  Sure but that's special pleading.  The law has been around for over a century  Every crusading NYAG in my adult lifetime has used the full powers of the law to the hilt to go after juicy targets, from Wall Street fat cats to bankers, to hedge funds. Trump does not get to claim immunity to such treatment.

[The Minsky Moment]

Verbatim lines from Trump's opposition brief raising the Derridean objection to objectivity:

NYAG's allegations regarding the overstated valuations and
insufficient disclosures contained in the SOFCs, which are central to their case, are
predicated on the notion that there exists such a thing as objective value. But this notion is
a fiction. . . From Mr. Trump's perspective—the perspective of a creative and visionary real estate
developer who sees the potential and value of properties that others do not, not on a year
to year time horizon but often decades ahead—the valuation of those properties would have
looked very different

[Admiral Yi]

@Joan

Thanks for the very helpful context.  I change my verdict from weak case to unjust prosecution.

Based on your description everyone who writes an incorrect number on a document is guilty in NY of fraud.  And the NY AG is not prosecuting all of them.  Which feeds Donald's narrative that he is being singled out for political reasons.

[grumbler]

@Joan

Thanks for the very helpful context.  I change my verdict from weak case to unjust prosecution.

Based on your description everyone who writes an incorrect number on a document is guilty in NY of fraud.  And the NY AG is not prosecuting all of them.  Which feeds Donald's narrative that he is being singled out for political reasons.

If the fact that not all crimes are prosecuted means that all prosecutions are unjust, then there's nothing particularly unjust about the prosecution of Trump.

If prosecution decisions rightly include severity of the violation, then there's no evidence =that I know of that Trump's prosecution is unjust.  Feel free to make the argument, though.

[DGuller]

As a general concept, it does annoy me that the law seems to play dumb when it comes to selective prosecution.  Just the other day, I was completing the annual sexual harassment training at my place of employment.  When it came to the section about protection against retaliation, one of the test questions was about an employee who testified at a sexual harassment trial and was later fired for documented issues with the work product.  The correct answer was that it was not a case of retaliation.

The obvious question that was not even addressed anywhere is:  how often do people with documented issues get fired if they don't testify at sexual harassment trials?  I'm sure a lot of people will read into it a message like "if you get involved in a sexual harassment case, you better make sure we can't find absolutely anything once we go through your file with a fine-toothed comb".  It seems to me that the intent of the law against retaliation is that a person involved in a sexual harassment case will not be treated any different by the company, and that should include not having a different standard of discretion applied to them.

[Sheilbh]

Based on your description everyone who writes an incorrect number on a document is guilty in NY of fraud.  And the NY AG is not prosecuting all of them.  Which feeds Donald's narrative that he is being singled out for political reasons.

The NY AG doesn't decide who's guilty or not though - they decide who to prosecute which will depend on factors like whether there's sufficient evidence to reasonably have a chance at winning the case (how much evidence and is it high quality) and probably the severity of the offence.

In the UK prosecutors also have a public interest test, I imagine it's even more discretionary in the US given that it's a political role.

[DGuller]

They decide who's definitely not going to be found guilty, though.