Former ethics czar trashes lawyer's claim that Trump fraud ruling is 'illegitimate' – Raw Story
Sarah Burris is a long-time veteran of political campaigns, having worked as a fundraiser and media director across the United States. She transitioned into reporting while working for Rock the Vote, Future Majority and Wiretap Magazine, covering the Millennial Generation's perspective during the presidential elections. As a political writer, Burris has had bylines at CNN, Salon.com, BNR, and AlterNet and serves as a senior digital editor for RawStory.com.
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In a 16-page paper, former Ethics Czar, impeachment lawyer and longtime legal analyst Norm Eisen destroyed arguments that Judge Arthur Engoron's verdict and fine for Donald Trump and his company is "illegitimate."
On Friday, Trump was ordered to pay $354.9 million for a decades-long scheme that involved artificially inflating the size and value of properties and other assets, garnering him favorable treatment at banks.
Jonathan Turley, a lawyer who spoke out against impeaching Trump, has been among those legal analysts to defend the ex-president on many legal matters publicly. Writing in the New York Post, Turley spun Trump's talking points that Democrats weaponized the justice system to "punish" him.
Trump has long claimed that the fraud was "victimless."
"But the defense team called multiple witnesses from Deutsche Bank, whose testimony focused on confirming the obvious: that the bank sought to do business with Trump to make money, that it, in fact, profited off the relationship with Trump, and that there was no default of the loans," explains Eisen and co-author Andrew Warren in the paper.
However, he wrote, "victim loss is not required to establish intent to defraud."
In fact, there was a loss by the bank, the paper explains.
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"Challenging the extent of the financial loss is different than establishing there was no loss, and the record clearly established that the banks lost money by lending at lower interest rates than they otherwise might have," it says.
Turley had claimed that the Trump Organization didn't harm anybody, and thus the prosecution was without merit.
"Even the New York Times agreed that it could not find a single case in history where this statute was used against an individual or a company that did not commit a criminal offense, go bankrupt, or leave financial victims," claimed Turley. "Engoron then combined that unprecedented application with an equally extraordinary penalty, which is greater than the gross national product of some countries."
Eisen and Warren write, "Now the salient questions are whether or not the state made its case, and if so, will it survive on appeal. While the defense certainly scored points (more than popularly appreciated), we think the court will rule for the state, and the record is sufficient to withstand appeal — notwithstanding some defense successes along the way."
They continued: "Despite some ups and downs, we believe the OAG has proven the three primary causes of action against Trump: falsification of business records in the second degree (cause of action 2), issuing false financial statements 18 (cause of action 4), and insurance fraud 19 (cause of action 6). The three remaining causes of action charge conspiracy to commit each of these offenses, which require additional proof, as discussed below. We start out of order with the fourth cause of action, as the accuracy of the annual SFCs is the heart of the entire case."
Ultimately, the decision is likely to go to the appeals court, Eisen conceded.
Posting on social media, Eisen responded directly to Turley: "To my friend (& he is!) @JonathanTurley & everyone else saying Judge Engoron's reasoning is illegitimate NO, NO, NO 1000x NO @AndrewWarrenFL & I wrote an indep. analysis of the evidence & law (a top 10 SSRN paper in our category)"
Read more here.
There are two kinds of Republicans and one of those group is incredible afraid of Donald Trump, an elections expert said on MSNBC Monday night.
"The Republican party only has two flavors," said Marc Elias, an American Democratic Party elections lawyer. "There is bold MAGA and scared MAGA. They all act like bold MAGA in public but a lot of them are just scared MAGA."
There's just one key difference between the two voting blocs, according to Elias. It's the object of scared MAGA's fears.
"They are afraid of Donald Trump, they're afraid of his base," Elias said.
Elias did not appear afraid of Trump, reminding viewers that in 2020 he successfully represented President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee in dozens of successful cases when the Trump campaign contested the 2020 presidential election results.
"I wound up having to go to court to prevent Donald Trump from throwing those ballots out," Elias said. "It was a hair's whisker from the results winding up the other way, and it was no thanks to a single Republican…neither the bold MAGA nor the scared MAGA were willing to stand up to him."
Watch the video below or click here.
Former President Donald Trump is unlikely to have any success appealing the civil fraud decision handed down against him in New York last week, former White House ethics special counsel Norm Eisen told CNN on Monday.
Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump liable for more than $350 million in fines for systematically inflating his company's property valuations, and also temporarily limited his ability to do business in the state of New York. Trump attorney Alina Habba has already vowed to appeal the decision.
"How do you think Trump is likely to fare on this appeal?" asked anchor Wolf Blitzer.
"Poorly, Wolf," said Eisen. "The judge backed up his legal findings of fraud by the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump, and others, with a mountain of evidence and very sound legal reasoning."
"You can't say your home is about 30,000 square feet when it's about 10,000 square feet," said Eisen. "And the same kind of disparities are found on Trump's Seven Springs estate, Mar-a-Lago, 40 Wall Street, and on and on. The judge dropped the most controversial and problematic finding on his final order, and that was the corporate death penalty, yanking the certificates of doing business in New York. What's left is bulletproof."
The bottom line, said Eisen, is that "Trump is going to lose this appeal, very likely."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Norm Eisen says Trump likely can't appeal fraud rulingwww.youtube.com
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) accused former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) of sexism after he said she needed to seek help and "straighten out her life."
During an interview on Monday, conservative podcaster Steve Bannon told Mace that McCarthy was attacking eight Republicans who voted to oust him as Speaker.
Bannon asked if McCarthy had insulted her mental health because she was a woman.
"I know you're not one to, you know, go to the woke false feminism that many of the woke Karens go to," Bannon opined. "Would Kevin McCarthy, he's going after the other eight. Has he ever gone after any of the other eight and saying, I hope they get the help they need and imply that there's some mental or personal issues there?"
"Does he just do this with women?" he wondered.
"Oh, it sure does seem like it," Mace replied. "I seem to be singled out for some reason."
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"Of course, I'm not like the other seven because I am a woman, and I don't like to pull the woman card, but I am the only woman of the eight, and I have a backbone," she continued. "In fact, he knew I was going to vote against him for speaker, and he didn't even have the balls to call me and try to figure out why or what he could do to improve the situation to win my vote back and said he called."
"Did he just call you crazy?" Bannon asked.
"I think he did call me crazy," Mace confirmed. "I think he called me mentally unstable because I replaced the swamp in my D.C. office like I had had enough of it."
"A lot of male members do that," she added. "But just because I'm a woman, there's something off about that. It's like calling a woman saying she's upset or she's emotional."
"No, I'm just leading like every other member of Congress. And when I want to have a change, I'm allowed to have that."
Watch the video below from Real America's Voice or click here.
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