OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
FOX News contributor and Georgetown University law professor Jonathan Turley responded harshly to the verdict that hit former President Donald Trump and his sons with massive fines for fraud in a NY civil trial.
The verdict from Judge Engoron came on Friday and saddled the former president and his sons with $364 million in fines and banned former President Trump from being an officer in his business for three years and his sons for two years each.
Turley shredded the decision during his appearance on Fox News.
“Well, this court really proved Oscar Wilde’s rule that ‘The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.’ Because the court has done everything short of ordering that Trump be thrown into a wood chipper. He’s imposed almost the maximum amount that James requested. He’s barring him from doing business in the city where he’s an iconic business figure, barring him from getting loans,” the professor began.
“The last part is particularly ironic because the banks not only said that they were not victims and did not complain about the alleged fraud, but they said that they wanted to do more business with Trump. They described him as a ‘whale’ client. So this is all being done essentially in their name as victims, even though no one lost any money,” he said.
“None of us could find a case like this. Yet, the first one, you have this fortune that is being demanded by the court to be turned over. I think there are real problems here. I think that this is going to have the same impact on some appellate judges. There have to be some limits, including Constitutional limits on the size of penalties, this is confiscatory and in my view, just excessive.
“You know, I think there’s a major appeal obviously that will come. I was hoping the court would defy its critics and show a more moderate response. To show that yes, there were assets that were undervalued and overvalued, but to impose a more reasonable fine,” he said.
GWU law professor Jonathan Turley nails it with his description of just how unjust the civil fraud ruling – fine and business ban – against Trump really is. pic.twitter.com/utv5rxCKoJ
— USA Features Media (@UsaFeatures) February 17, 2024
“Many of us believed that there were cases of valuation problems. But those are ubiquitous in this field of real estate. This is extremely common for businesses to undervalue property, to try to lower tax costs, and to overvalue in securing loans. Often you look at the victims themselves to see if those practices produced the type of injury that warrants this rare action. And the victims are in court saying we’re not victims. We didn’t really take these numbers on their face,” he said.
“The court seems to have compounded the highest figures in most areas of how much could have been claimed and might have impacted loans or taxes and then imposed those costs,” said the renowned law professor.
“The New York law is an odd one. It does not require that anyone actually loses money. So [state AG Letitia] James was able to come in here with this figure, and she kept going on. Of course, that pleased a lot of people in New York. The question I think is whether at some point this shocks the conscience,” Turley went on.
“You know, you have Bragg, who is prosecuting the president in a case that many of us view as just a raw political exercise. You have James, who promised to bag this president for some undefined reason when she ran for office. And now you have this confiscatory, extreme, and abuse of penalty,” the professor continued.
“At some point, New Yorkers have to wonder: Is this what we want from a legal system? It’s raw, and it’s political. I am not saying that there was not a basis to impose a fine. But when you’re imposing fines larger than the budget of some countries, you really have to wonder whether you have allowed your impulse to run away with your judgment,” he added.
