I'm reading the NYT article on yesterday's big decision: "Judge Rules Trump Committed Fraud, Stripping Control of Key Properties/The decision in a lawsuit that could go to trial next week is a major win for Attorney General Letitia James, who says former President Donald J. Trump overvalued his holdings by as much as $2.2 billion."
The judge included a joke in his opinion:
“The documents do not say what they say; that there is no such thing as ‘objective’ value,” the judge wrote, paraphrasing their arguments as he saw them, and adding, “Essentially, the court should not believe its own eyes.” In a footnote, he added a line from the movie “Duck Soup” uttered by Chico Marx: “Well, who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”"
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I'm guessing she's black.
Wonderful. A Marx Brothers court. They got the Marx part right, but it ain't Chico.
Is there any detail regarding the valuation discipline the court used to determine the discipline Trump used was not only inaccurate but ‘fradulent’?
I suspect not.
All wealth comes from disagreement over values.
No access to read the article, but is anything said about the due-diligence lenders must take before approving loans? E.g., I can declare that my property/assets are worth such-and-such on a loan application, but the lender will surely conduct an independent appraisal, no?
…and should we expect the confiscations Judge Jerry Seinfeld ordered will be carried out?
It sounds like the financial literacy equivalent of a government takeover of General Electric because Liz Warren determined they ‘didn’t pay taxes!’
Donald Trump is the first traditional con man this country has ever made me side with.
THIS is why everyday Americans think that justice is dead and the corrupt are destroying what's left of us.
🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸
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What a joke.
The Democrat New York Attorney General had a Democrat judge simply rule Trump committed fraud.
No trial.
No jury.
For the non-fraud of Trump paying back sophisticated Wall Street banks.
In full.
With interest.
Democrat law-fare.
Appellate courts must reverse.
5:14 PM · Sep 26, 2023
There’s blood in the water.
In the same edition of the Times: how elite universities pay no property taxes, not even on their presidential palaces and free luxury accommodations for no-show celebrity "thinkers" like Biden. Columbia, NYU and their ilk are the biggest property owners in NYC, yet their status allows them to avoid property taxes that pay for city services and crime control, severely straining the tax base so these mandarins can live in mansions while the little people pay their bills for them.
This of course frees up the mandarin academicians to spend their time lobbying against police services and other first responders -- destroying the lives and businesses and jobs of the serf classes that support them.
Whether public or private, every American taxpayer supports every college and university through federal grants and guaranteed student loans at below-market rates. Tenured profs barely teaching two classes a year roll in bennies and cash and massive retirement and platinum health care as these universities promote activism spreading chaos through the rest of society.
Any principled tenured academician would speak out about this.
But there are none courageous enough.
We deal with re appraisals for bank loans all the time. There are methods but since there is no transaction, no ‘meeting if the minds’ the valuations reached are all subjective in the extreme- invented…made up. The process is necessary for the bank to justify the loan valuation. It is the bank’s decision to become comfortable with the valuation, not the responsibility of the loanee to use a valuation method a future politically motivated kangaroo court won’t reject…
Every time another damning fact drops about Joe Biden's corruption, something like this is announced. Ruining Trump is not going to reverse Joe Biden's corruption.
Who is the injured party again? No one claimed to be injured.
This judge apparently wrote that MAL is worth $18m. In that neighborhood, a much smaller vacant lot recently sold for $4m.
Reversed.
The news readers at CNN and MSNBC were plain giddy.
Maybe the Judge should read this Progressive article from Newsweek...
https://www.newsweek.com/how-much-mar-lago-worth-if-trump-sells-1763066
The entire opinion by the Judge is a joke.
I suspect the left is not going to like the new standards they are setting. They never expect the new standards to boomerang back on them. But, they eventually do.
Fraud is fraud. If I lied on a loan application regarding assets or income, there would be consequences.
Trump's biggest mistake was to run for president in the first place. He could've operated as a low-rent, two-bit Real Estate hustler indefinitely; he was not prepared for the intense scrutiny that comes with the presidency.
Sentencing first trial later.
Lawyer Kise is confused. It was Trump, not the judge, who made excess value claims to the tune of $2.2 billion. It was Trump, not the Judge who failed to respond to some 400 questions under oath.
It was Kise not the judge who made untrue claims in court that cost him $7,500. "Whatever Donald wants, Donald gets" doesn't work in a court of law.
Unasked advice for the President - close down everything you own in the State of New York, take your jobs and your taxes and your good will to that city and leave for greener pastures elsewhere. New York neither wants you nor the business and tax revenue you generate. Leave and be quick about it.
By any means necessary.
Trump 2023 = Senator Bob Packwood 1992
The Democratic Party used ambiguous sexual misconduct allegations to attack and then force moderate Republican Packwood from the Senate (e.g., to pick up another Dem Senate seat). Then, the Democratic Party was soon hoisted on its own petard as Bill Clinton's many and more serious sexual misconduct issues came to light. The Democrats had made it a political topic in the first place...so they set the standards and rules...and then Lewinsky happened...
With Trump, if government criminalizes routine private industry happy-talk propaganda, smoke-and-mirrors claims, and utopian marketing, there are 1,000,000,000 potential crimes to prosecute. And most of these will be in blue cities and states and by blue companies run by Democrats. Let's take a look into the often predatory, monopolistic, and deceptive business practices of Jamie Dimon, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and the other top 0.0001% of blue friendlies who fund the party.
Payback is a bitch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Packwood
Is the judge talking about standard disclaimers, which say rely on your own valuation, don’t rely on ours?
That seems like the reverse of the Chico Marx quote.
so, i assume that the government owes Trump a LOT of back taxes?
It was Trump, not the judge, who made excess value claims to the tune of $2.2 billion
What was the court's methodology to determine the value claims were excessive by $2.2 billion?
They Thought They Were Free
This is the story of Germans who saw their liberal democracy taken over by fascists, and how they were shocked to discover that their freedoms had been taken away.
I was surprised to learn that Mar-a-Lago was only worth $18 million when a vacant lot a quarter mile away, a tiny fraction of the size, with less Palm Beach oceanfront, is for sale for $150 million. But apparently that is the case. I guess you have to be a Democrat or an LLR to understand these intricacies of the real estate market.
I didn't know Hawaiian judges could double dip by moonlighting in New York...
Can anybody provide me with the list of other real-estate entrepreneurs who have been similarly treated by the legal system for similar offenses?
If they can do this to Trump, they will do it to you too.
“All wealth comes from disagreement over values.“
The winners make the best guesses. I guess.
Is it the case that banks take the word of a loan applicant for the value of the proffered collateral?
We did a refi some years back on our home. An assessor took about half an hour, not counting travel time and whatever office work was involved
They do things differently in NYC?
It feels as if we are approaching a tipping point in which the legitimacy of our legal system will be lost. I'm uncertain what will happen next. Nothing good.
If they can do this to Trump, they will do it to you too
Of course. That is the point of it all.
So does the article indicate that the "Judge" is a democrat? It should. Does it indicate the prosecutor hates Trump and got elected on a platform of "Getting Trump"? It should.
They are trying to jail trump and destroy Trump's business because he has poltical opinions they dislike. This is the new normal, because the Right and the center right, refuse to fight back. All they do is occassionly plead: "Please be reasonable".
Well the Left is NOT reasonable. And they are going to use their power to destroy anyone who opposes them.
he was not prepared for the intense scrutiny that comes with the presidency.
he was not prepared for the intense persecution that comes with a Republican presidency.
FIFY
@ Gahrie — If they can hold a former US president to account for financial crimes, they can hold anyone to account for financial crimes is an inspiring proclamation of equality under law.
Trial lawyers are going to start contributing more to republicans if they keep nominating criminals.
Excuse me. I am slow of understanding. Who was defrauded by whatever numbers Trump used to value his properties? Was it his lenders who were victimized, presumably by accepting his bullish guesses at what things were worth --guesses based, I have to think, on comparable properties recently sold or used as collateral, and thus a reasonable proxy for his own properties?
If it's the lenders who were screwed by their own credulity, please name them so I can avoid ever doing business with such incompetents.
And even then: how were they screwed? Did Trump default on whatever financing was predicated on his guesses? If so, was the default resolved to mutual satisfaction? Where is the harm to the public worthy of "attorney" James' time?
This is such an obvious political hit.
We run into this problem that you generally do not go after people in civil court when there are no damages to anyone. If Trump had lied about the value of the property and then defaulted on a loan secured by that property, then there is a point. There's no indication that this occurred. At all. In fact, there does not appear to be any indication that anyone is upset by this "fraud" other than the DA and the judge, neither of which have any stake in the money flowing here, which makes it all seems like a political persecution. Which it is.
Politicizing the courts is a good way to start a civil war.
Rich: Trial lawyers are going to start contributing more to republicans if they keep nominating criminals.
I appreciate your self-own. Thank you for the entertainment value.
Maynard @ 8:48:
"...'If they can do this to Trump, they will do it to you too'
Of course. That is the point of it all."
Yup. The message here is quite clear. Trump himself articulated it perfectly a while ago: "It's you they're after. I'm just in the way."
This high-level theatre educates the public on who is Good and who is Evil, and demonstrates what will happen to anyone --and we mean YOU, peon-- who fails to toe the line.
We're watching History unfold. Because historians (if our civilization survives to produce any in the future) will seize upon the biggest shiniest fragments of evidence of "what was happening." And this little drama is just such a fragment.
"The judge included a joke in his opinion ..."
Yeah, that's one funny judge.
No commercial real estate lender relies on a prospective borrower’s valuation. They have their own internal due diligence teams that are way smarter than the NY court. Not sure who was defrauded here. The state should have used these high valuations for purposes of real estate taxes but then they are too thick for that.
The judge included a joke in his opinion:
This judge is the joke.
In 2014 Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was found guilty of being a politician while Republican (overturned 9-0 by the US Supreme Court) and 9 years later Trump is guilty of being a businessman while Republican. I go see a pattern here.
@ Owen — Isn’t this only half the charge? Two sets of books? One overvaluing assets for loans and insurance but the other with undervalued assets for tax purposes. Waiting for the other boot to drop.
I guess that the magic dirt on which the US sits was not enough to keep our country from being subverted by the same kind of corrupt ruination that has led to the downfall of so many other great nations before us.
The good side of this is that the complete lack of faith in our leadership that is permeating the country will deny the neocons the soldiers they need. Nobody want's to join the military anymore. They are going to have to bring back the draft.
Developers do this. Banks know they do this. Different valuations for different banks, different loans.
Who are the victims?
Trump: My properties are huge, they're beautiful, they're perfect properties. Everybody says my properties are the greatest thing they've ever seen.
Judge: I hate this fucking guy. Guilty!
Worth noting that this is just the set-up for the main civil trial, which will be a bench trial with no jury, that is scheduled to begin next week.
The judge in that bench "trial" will be the same one who issued this summary judgement.
I notice that Ivanka was named in the initial charges by AG James but was not named in this summary judgement. Too sympathetic?
I also notice a considerable amount of skepticism in the coverage of the judgement by the Times.
They know this is absolute trash.
There is a solution for businessmen worried about his happening to them. Give to Democrats until it hurts, and never give a penny to the Republican Party.
Rich said...
“Trial lawyers are going to start contributing more to republicans if they keep nominating criminals.”
So that’s how the Democrats have a monopoly on trial lawyer contributions.
Rich acknowledges Democrats are so used to having Democrat criminals in office that, rather than wanting to put a stop to it,, he recommends it to others.
This is blatantly unfair to Trump. I would presume that he engages in hyperbole when it comes to valuation. It's part of the art of the deal. My guess is that others do the same thing. Was Musk defrauded by Twitter? Time Warner by AOL? Donors by BLM....This is far more likely to damage the reputation of the judicial system than that of Trump. The Dems weaponized the OJ juries and now they're even dispensing with such juries. You can't just shake off the decent opinion of his millions of voters with such sang froid.
gadfly
Lawyer Kise is confused. It was Trump, not the judge, who made excess value claims to the tune of $2.2 billion.
I have 110 acres of Iowa farm ground. Its worth between $250K and $1.5 million.
So tell me I'm lying.
If I go to a bank and tell them I'll put the land up for collateral for a $1million loan, have I committed a crime if they accept the deal?
This not just a hypothetical. It's important. It cant be a crime if I cant KNOW its a crime.
So is deutsche bank a party to this lawsuit? Citi? UBS? If not why not. They were/are lenders to Trump. Did they get tricked? LOL.
There three sets of property values: The owner's value, the tax assessor's value and the appraised value. It's purely a coincidence that any two of these might be the same. The government uses the assessed value to determine the tax bill. The bank uses the appraised value to make a loan and the owner uses his value to brag about his property. The usual relation between these values is:
Owner>appraised>assessed.
Any bank that uses the owner's value to make a loan should be investigated for financial fraud. Trump's loan documents all said that the lender needs to make its own appraisal before issuing the loan.
All of the above values are just opinions. The actual property value can only be determined by a sale, when the seller and the buyer agree on a price. And the true value is only true until the transaction closes, after that it becomes a just reference point for other property evaluations.
"Isn’t this only half the charge? Two sets of books? One overvaluing assets for loans and insurance but the other with undervalued assets for tax purposes. Waiting for the other boot to drop."
Dick, it is almost as if you have no idea how tax assessments actually work. I am guessing you don't own any property whatsoever. You live in your mom's basement, don't you?
Rich @ 11:10 AM: "... Isn’t this only half the charge? Two sets of books? One overvaluing assets for loans and insurance but the other with undervalued assets for tax purposes. Waiting for the other boot to drop."
I have no idea how real estate tycoons keep their books. I see no intrinsic offense in keeping "two sets of books" (a phrasing designed to prejudice readers): I may NEED to keep several sets of records for the same events or objects, as required by tax law, accounting law and my own planning. Example: the building is depreciated to $X for tax purposes, but its replacement value (for insurance purposes) is $5X (and I pay the high premiums for that much coverage) and its current likely value for (a) quick sale is $4X, for (b) strategic/patient/extra-effort marketing is $6X.
Which is "the" valuation?
I defer to you, you seem to be so very well informed.
Real estate insiders bewildered by judge’s $18M valuation of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago: ‘Would list at $300M’: https://nypost.com/2023/09/27/donald-trumps-mar-a-lago-worth-at-least-300m-sources/
Yeah, that judge is a laff riot.
In my 40 years of business law practice, I observed that banks, insurance companies, buyers, sellers, and other third parties did their own evaluations of property offered for sale or as collateral in transactions. Problems arose where due diligence revealed that the property owner had cooked the books about rent rolls, lease terms, undisclosed property interests, etc.
Did Trump do any of that?
The last thing any buyer or lender relied on was the owner's assertion of value.
So it looks as if this idiot in a black robe has decided to send Trump's business to the gas chamber: pulling the corporate charter. We are in deep water here. It simply does not happen like this (certainly in my limited experience as a NY corporate lawyer over, oh, 40-plus years).
If I were counseling any NY corporations right now, I would be telling their Boards of Directors IN ALL CAPS that they must immediately seek to move their corporate domicile to another, less-insane, jurisdiction. It would be a dereliction of duty to remain where they are, potentially exposed to similar action by a bedwetting excuse for a jurist, over whatever he or she considers bad behavior. Get out of town. Now.
Rich: you're welcome to offer an opinion here.
"Trump's biggest mistake was to run for president in the first place."
Hey Rich. You have no idea how revealing that sentence is.
Who are the victims?"
We are, my friend. We are.
Did I already say that it would be dereliction of duty for any member of any board of directors of any corporation chartered under NY law, NOT to move immediately to shift its domicile to a less-insane jurisdiction: probably Delaware but really anywhere but NY would do for the moment?
This is front-page news in corporate law land.
IMHO.
All of the law fare against Trump is certainly breaking new ground in criminal law.
Of course, they will only do this against Trump because he threatens democracy. Right?
... Right??
Rich said...
Fraud is fraud. If I lied on a loan application regarding assets or income, there would be consequences.
Trump's biggest mistake was to run for president in the first place. He could've operated as a low-rent, two-bit Real Estate hustler indefinitely; he was not prepared for the intense scrutiny that comes with the presidency.
*************
"In other news, Cassidy Hutchinson has claimed Rich was overheard complaining to his mom that "I'm SMAHT! SMAHT! Not dumb like everyone says.""
If I were in the business of loaning big money to real estate developers, I sure as shit would have people crawling all over the property itself, as well as the business that's on it, to determine its present value and future worth.
If if Trump asked for a $10 million loan based on his valuation of the property at $100 million, and the underwriters came back to say the property's only worth $80 million, would the lenders offer an $8 million loan, tops?
Isn't that routine in that line of business? It seems to apply to home mortgage lending.
So...how can there be civil fraud when there's no measure of damages?
Trump, the perennial lesser of two evils, provides an object lesson in just how evil his opponents are.
As all men know, and are often thinking, this is a reenactment of the proscriptions conducted by Roman emperors.
Any attempt to keep Trump off the ballot will be met with massive resistance. At minimum, he'll set new records for the write-in vote.
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