New York AG Letitia James announces lawsuit of Donald Trump, his company and family members over fraud claims
$250,000,000.
For starters.
Thanks for starting this thread.
The beauty of this case is, it’s all paper. Easiest case in the world to prove.
Trump will, as ever, do his best to delay proceedings. In the end, though, I expect the State of New York to prevail.
Michael Cohen is having a nice day today.
Well, if he loses this case, Trump could try to sell Mar-A-Lago to raise the cash, but he only paid $10 million for it, and has probably so uglified it since then that it’s lost value. But he won’t really need it if he’s in jail for obstruction of justice or espionage.
He could try to sell his 757, but a good used 757-200ER only goes for around $20 mil, whereas his, which was left deteriorating in wet and snowy weather for years, and which has one of the most gaudy interiors I’ve ever seen, is probably worth a small fraction of that.
At least he could throw ketchup against the wall. That always seems to soothe him.
Can’t Trump say he didn’t know about the fraud and simply signed the papers as a matter of course? Is the CEO responsible for the wrongdoing of a CFO?
Initial speculative prediction: the Trump family will escape immediate personal legal consequences, Weisselberg will be toast, and the Trump Organization will be razed and salted earth (particularly if the loans start getting called in) - but this will still cost the Trumps a lot of lost income.
Does the Trump Org own Mar-A-Lago?
I’m not a lawyer, so please help me understand why this is not a criminal case. Is it not be a crime to undervalue properties for tax purposes and overvalue them for loan purposes?
IANAL either, but … I just think two different groups will be looking at the same basic set of facts, and – like the DoJ – want to dot “I’s” and cross “T’s” before they pull any triggers:
The Office’s Criminal and Civil Divisions bring significant cases against the perpetrators of a wide range of fraudulent conduct. The Criminal Division investigates and prosecutes complex frauds and white collar crimes as well as securities and commodities fraud. The Civil Division’s Civil Frauds Unit uses civil enforcement statutes to investigate and bring cases attacking numerous types of misconduct, including financial fraud, healthcare fraud, and program and grant fraud, and in recent years has obtained admissions of wrongdoing from dozens of defendants and over $5 billion in recoveries on behalf of the federal government. The Civil Frauds Unit and the Criminal Division’s “white collar” units all work to maximize the recovery of fraud proceeds and to return that money to victims.
[NB: This website is the Feds. I don’t know how/if SDNY can/will be involved, but we know they’re looking]
From the CNN link in the OP…
James said she believes state and criminal laws may have been violated and referred the matter to the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York and the Internal Revenue Service.
I’m not a lawyer either, but it seems like for the criminal portion, “stay tuned”.
What I do know is that lawsuits have a much lower bar to decide against a defendant (based on the preponderance of evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt) so I imagine it’s faster and easier to get a civil suit done. A criminal case takes longer because there is a higher bar.
The same set of facts are often used to determine different standards of justice.
Think of the criminal and civil cases in the OJ Simpson case. A criminal jury looked at the facts and determined (rightly or wrongly) that they didn’t rise to the level of a criminal violation. A civil jury, used for the purposes of determining monetary damages, found that they did.
Criminal charges try defendants for their culpability. Civil charges sue for the purpose of imposing monetary damages and other civil punishments for harm done arising out of the same set of facts.
Hope this clarifies.
As to the potential criminal charges arising out of these particular facts, we’ll have to see what DOJ does. They won’t move before the mid-terms, I expect.
As Rachel says, “Watch this space.”
Also, the standards of conviction are different:
Civil - Preponderance of evidence
Criminal - Beyond a reasonable doubt
True. Also, in civil matters, it’s not referred to as a “conviction.” It’s referred to as “obtaining a judgment.”
This is going to be fun.
Seems like Weisselberg should be on there, too.
You go, girl! Tear his ass up!
Yeah, part of my brain knew that, but I was too lazy to look it up. 
Lots of people don’t know that, so you’re ahead of the curve.
There may be limited situations where a CFO acted fraudulently and concealed his actions in a manner that (within the relevant timeframe) it would not have been possible for a diligent CEO to know what was happening. Outside those limited circumstances - yes, the CEO is responsible for the wrongdoing of a CFO, even granting the implausible premise that the instigator here was the CFO.
Don’t worry. He is.
DONALD J. TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP,
JR., ERIC TRUMP, IVANKA TRUMP,
ALLEN WEISSELBERG, JEFFREY
MCCONNEY, THE DONALD J. TRUMP
REVOCABLE TRUST, THE TRUMP
ORGANIZATION, INC., TRUMP
ORGANIZATION LLC, DJT HOLDINGS
LLC, DJT HOLDINGS MANAGING
MEMBER, TRUMP ENDEAVOR 12 LLC,
401 NORTH WABASH VENTURE LLC,
TRUMP OLD POST OFFICE LLC, 40
WALL STREET LLC, and SEVEN
SPRINGS LLC
weisselberg is named along with mcconney (controller and chief lieutenant to weisselberg).
because trump kept the number of people in the org. low, there aren’t that many people to blame when things go bad.
If this succeeds and all our hopes and dreams come true, and TFG and his family have to pay the consequences for building their fraudulent empire, by getting locked-up, will he still be able to run for President? Because evidently he can still run for office from a jail cell, and wreak havoc on the whole election and our Democracy. “Lock-him-up!” is what I want to happen, but barred from running for federal office is what I am looking for here - and I don’t think either of these cases could deliver that (only Congress can do that thru impeachment, right?).