Former President Donald Trump blasted Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York and Judge Arthur Engoron on Friday following the ruling in his civil fraud trial.
James sued Trump in September 2022, alleging that he overstated the value of real estate holdings in order to obtain loans. Engoron’s ruling ordered Trump to pay $354 million and banned him “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years.”
“We’ll be appealing,” Trump said to reporters outside Mar-a-Lago. “But, more important than that, this is Russia, this is China, this is the same game, all comes out of the DOJ. It all comes out of Biden. It’s witch-hunt against his political opponent, the likes of which our country has never seen before, you see it in third world countries, banana republics, but you don’t see it here.”
“So I just want to say this: You build a great company. There was no fraud. The banks all got their money, 100 percent. They love Trump. They testified that Trump is great, great customer, one of our best customers. They testified beautifully, and the judge knows that. He is just a corrupt person and we knew that from the beginning. We knew it right from the beginning because he wouldn’t give it to the commercial division.”
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Engoron ruled on Sept. 26 that Trump was liable for fraud, ordering that several business licenses Trump held were to be rescinded. An appeals judge paused the ruling on Oct. 6.
“Letitia James, that’s another case altogether. She is a horribly corrupt attorney general and it’s all having to do with election interference,” Trump said. “There were no victims because the banks made a lot of money, they made $100 million. And by the way, I paid approximately $300 million in taxes as the migrants come in and they take over New York, I paid over this period of years over $300 million in taxes and they want me out, oh, let’s see if we can get him out. These are radical left Democrats, they are lunatics and it’s election interfering.”
James called Trump an “illegitimate president” during her 2018 campaign for attorney general and pledged to investigatehis finances.
“All the other side had was a ridiculous $18 million valuation of magnificent Mar-a-Lago, an unConstitutional Gag Order, a Consumer Fraud Statute never before used for this purpose, No Jury allowed, and a refusal to send this disgusting charade to the Commercial Division, where it would have been put to a deserving end,” Trump said in a statement after the ruling.
Real-estate experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Engoron’s ruling greatly undervalued Mar-a-Lago, which some considered to be worth more than $250 million.
Harold Hutchison on February 16, 2024
