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The case was a civil action brought under New York Executive Law § 63(12), which explicitly enables the Attorney General to bring suit against someone engaged in repeated fraud. Not all fraud is criminal; most is a civil matter.
One of Trump's properties jumped in reported value from $80 million to $150 million between 2005 and 2006 without explanation. He admitted under oath in 2007 that he overstates property values and thinks most other people do as well. Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress that Trump regularly inflated or deflated the values of his properties for ego or tax purposes. Trump's own CFO testified at trial that Trump had overstated property values by hundreds of millions of dollars (around double their value). In facilitation of this, he also falsely reported other data about his properties, such as reporting a 10,000 sq. ft. apartment as 30,000 sq. ft. These are not small technical discrepancies, but a repeated pattern of massively fudging numbers for financial and tax benefits.
The ones that engage in decades of systematic fraud, yeah.
Got it. The Democratic prosecutor who campaigned on going after Trump for political purposes is a one-off that will only be used when Republicans deserve it. Incidentally, Trump deserved it. Maybe if they prosecuted literally anybody else for financial crimes in the State of New York, I'd believe you.
Maybe I'd take your position a little less skeptically if you were arguing that every politician in the stock market, or every banker behind 2008, should also be charged with fraud. I'd still think it was convenient, since none of those people are actually getting prosecuted, and likely never will. But at least you could claim that your claim to principles is principled.
I'm sure plenty of Democrats would like to go after everyone with an (R) after their name, but the ability to successfully prosecute or sue political opponents is still heavily contingent on them having provably committed crimes or torts. This is not an endorsement of selective prosecution, merely an observation that Trump is a uniquely vulnerable target because he can't seem to stop breaking the law. It's hard to discern if his legal troubles represent an unprecedented weaponization of the justice system versus him being an unprecedented outlier in terms of surface area for liability. Maybe indiscriminate Democrat lawfare against Republicans will become the norm, but it's hard to conclude that based on evidence available today since it's so deeply confounded by the singular choice of opponent.
What are you talking about? Politicians break the law all the time! Whether it's through illegal schemes as part of the political process, or graft conducted at the expense of the political office. Explain to me why Trump "can't seem to stop breaking the law" compared to: Nancy Pelosi's infamous insider trading; Diane Feinstein's husband profiting off business ties to China; Joe Biden profiting off Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings.
American politicians break the law all the time by selling themselves to the highest bidder, and you want to grandstand about how Trump keeps breaking the law. I bet you jaywalk.
Insider trading laws are extremely lax with regard to transactions made by congresspeople. This is very convenient for them, and they should be pressured to ban congressional stock trading. The same can be said for Feinstein's conflicts of interest due her husband's business ties. Improper? Unethical? Sure. Illegal? They have expensive law degrees and lawyers (also with expensive law degrees), and they wrote the laws. Chances are they know exactly where the line is and didn't cross it. Prosecutors can't be held responsible for selective prosecution if the law hasn't actually been broken; they have no recourse even if they think lawmakers are scumbags that belong in prison.
There is an impeachment investigation over this run by congressional Republicans. It's not going well, by the way. I share your cynicism that he might have colluded with his son in influence peddling, but coming up with compelling evidence that stands up under scrutiny hasn't gone well even with motivated people at the helm. Trump, by contrast, managed to get caught on tape admitting that he possessed classified documents that he didn't declassify before leaving office. He's not merely unethical (like most of Washington), but also criminal (by the letter of the law) and incompetent. This astonishing combination of characteristics suffices to explain his legal troubles, or at least casts doubt on the theory that unprecedented Democrat norm-breaking is primarily to blame.
I've been browsing themotte for a while now and at times have been tempted to comment. This is the first time I feel i have something to contribute to a conversation. My response to this bit is catalyzed by the recent attention @ymeskhout has been bringing to lawfare.
If there is low-grade or open conservative hostility toward the establishment that Trump is the avatar of, it is because of this attitude of "we make the rules, we sneeringly violate the spirit of them and then aggressively prosecute those who don't play the game as sociopathically as we do." I am tired of people like ymeskhout sitting asking about evidence when we all know exactly what game is being played and the only thing that matters is exactly how well the corruption is concealed and how well the law is "played around".
I would argue now that the Democrats as a party have becoming exceptionally more skilled than Republicans at concealing their corruption and gaming the system to the point that they are comfortable openly flaunting their impunity. The anger that Trump is the voice of is the increasing modern understanding of just how rigged the game is and who exactly is rigging it.
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I think that's attributing too much competency to them.
Was the Obama admin's bragging of being 'scandal-free' true because they were so good at 'knowing where the lines is' or was it just because 99% of the talking heads on TV were so starry-eyed, financially-tied, potentially blackmailed that they could not do their job and uncover scandals? Heritage.org seems to lean toward the latter. Benghazi? Not a scandal? Clinton's server? Not a scandal?
I think being a good politician is 50% knowing-where-the-line-is (which I don't think anyone can do 100% as there are thousands of potential felonies at any given time), and 50% being in the right position with the people who could potentially get you in trouble.
The magic of 'A federal criminal investigation produced no charges, but FBI Director James Comey reported that the secretary and her colleagues “were extremely careless” in handling national secrets.'. See also the infamous Steele dossier.
Here is another example. Before you exclaim 'But he did get in trouble!', people who are quite a bit on the left seem to agree with my version of things. Perhaps there needed some kind of cultural moment for the 'gay top Democrat donor' privilege to be overridden...
Sometimes it seems that we need the police to protect black lives from Democrats.
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Are you suggesting that Trump is the first person to ever be found liable for fraud in New York? I'm willing to bet a large amount that's not true.
If you are going to keep making this claim you need to show another victimless fraud case that occurred that had zero pressure from an victim pushing for prosecution.
We can avoid discussing whether Trump did fraud. Just show me a victimless fraud case in NYC.
Here.
It's pretty rich to claim that that's "victimless", because if that is true, it would have undercut the justification for the case. That case is clearly premised on securities fraud harming either existing shareholders or shareholders who bought shares based on the fraudulent claims. Moreover, it is inconceivable that this had "zero pressure" from a victim (or at least a self-proclaimed victim), because lots of people think they're "victims" of climate change (and thus, any potentially fraudulent statements made about it). It's the foundation of the case, whether or not it is ultimately flawed, and that foundation is contrary to how you've portrayed it.
This is vastly better binned in the Matt Levine category of "Everything Is Securities Fraud". We know, it is baked in, that literally any conceivable case of securities fraud (literally "Everything", says Levine) will at least be attempted at some point. It's like Rule 34 for a particular statute.
But yeah, if you think that the Trump case is most akin to an area where everyone pretty much agrees that it's all just lawfare, grasping at every possible iteration of a theme, often specifically to pursue specific political goals (like climate change) rather than focusing on remedying fraud-as-traditionally-understood, then I think the point is actually made.
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There is like 30 pdf in there. Explain relevance and how it applies.
You asked for
I provided it. If you don't want to read it, don't ask for it.
Generally providing a summary of the case etc are considered proper form.
Assuming you are providing an equivalent case that would mean it’s been used twice - once to target an oil company which is a blue tribe political enemy and once to target Donald Trump a blue tribe political enemy.
It's been used much more than twice - the law has been on the books since the 50s.
I picked this case specifically because it was so clearly politically motivated, because that made it easy to have confidence that it was not actually motivated by Exxon investors who felt victimised. If you want to shift the goalposts and ask for a non-political 63(12) case instead, I can find one of those.
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