Nobody likes a bully, especially a gloating bully who salivates at the prospect of getting in another kick while the so-called victim is on the ground.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is such a bully. And she’s fixated on her would-be victim — Donald Trump. Someone should warn her that gloating over Trump before the fight is over can backfire spectacularly, even when the fight looks to have been fixed against him.
On Friday, Judge Arthur Engoron made public his predefined conclusion that Trump had inflated his net worth to get favorable loan terms. Engoron fined Trump $354.8 million plus nearly $100 million in pre-judgment interest for making the banks and himself money, according to ABC News.
It didn’t take Letitia James long to seek out the spotlight to gloat by threatening to do even more harm to Trump. James said she is prepared to seize Trump’s assets if he is unable to come up with the cash to cover the fine.
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James said in an interview with ABC News’ Aaron Katersky.
Talk about kicking a man while he’s down. James must be taking lessons from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who once said he thought Michelle Obama was wrong in her signature line, “When they go low, we go high.”
“Michelle always says ‘When they go low, we go high,’” Holder said at a camping event in Georgia. “No. No. When they go low, we kick them.”
Should Letitia James be impeached?
James must have taken Holder’s venomous sentiment to heart. She sounds like a lawfare version of the progressive Congresswoman from California Maxine Waters when she called for people to harass anyone who served in the Trump administration.
Are you starting to see a trend in the Democratic party? They’re not civil and they don’t play fair.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the Engoron case and he will appeal. The game’s not over, but James is acting like it is.
James said she was “very confident” with the strength of her case on appeal. She also made clear her office would not hesitate to seize Trump’s assets if he can’t cover the fine and was practically salivating when she mentioned Trump’s 40 Wall Street skyscraper by name.
“We are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers, and yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day,” James said.
“Financial frauds are not victimless crimes,” James continued. “He engaged in this massive amount of fraud. It wasn’t just a simple mistake, a slight oversight, the variations are wildly exaggerated, and the extent of the fraud was staggering. If average New Yorkers went into a bank and submitted false documents, the government would throw the book at them, and the same should be true for former presidents.”
I guess bankers are stupid and give money to anyone who says they have the assets to cover a loan. Not quite.
Deutsche Bank loaned Trump’s company hundreds of millions of dollars. An executive of the bank testified on Trump‘s behalf at the trial, according to the Associated Press. The executive said the bank follows guidelines that include checking out information that would-be borrowers provide. In other words, the financial experts don’t need government officials telling them who they can lend to.
“The attorney general’s job is to protect people who can’t protect themselves,” Syracuse University law professor Gregory Germain told Reuters. “Here, we’re dealing with very sophisticated lenders who are fully capable of protecting themselves and haven’t asked the attorney general for help.”
Bullies like James have a habit of sticking their noses into other people’s business. That’s what bullies do. They also tend to back off quickly when the would-be victim gets up off the ground and fights back.
Trump is a real-life Rocky when it comes to getting up after being knocked down. Letitia James may fantasize about the Russian fighter Ivan Vasilyevich Drago in the Rocky film, but she’s not up to playing the part. Drago lost, anyway. Rocky won.
It’s a bit too early for James to gloat. Nobody likes a bully.
