Donald Trump has been ordered to pay $354 million in fines for defrauding lenders who were never defrauded. He paid back all of the loans in question, on time, as required by the loan agreement. He did not miss payments. The banks didn’t have hire collection agencies to come after the money he owed them. He didn’t need the government to bail him out of unsustainable debt. No, he paid back all of the loans, and everybody involved made millions and millions of dollars, especially the banks.
In the trial, Trump’s lawyers were limited in their ability to offer evidence in his defense; and the judge made a summary judgment, as if he were the King of England, pronouncing guilt without proper due process. The verdict was a foregone conclusion. And on top of that, Donald Trump must pay $450 million in fines and interest just to be able to exercise his Constitutional right to appeal this unconstitutional verdict. There is speculation that Trump will have to sell off parts of his real estate empire to be able to pay to have his appeal even heard.
When New York Attorney General Leticia James first filed this lawsuit against Trump, she stated that, “there are not two sets of laws for people in this country; we must hold former presidents to the same standards as everyday Americans. I will continue to ensure that no one is able to evade the law, because no one is above it.” So, it appears she is determined to hold everyone accountable when it comes to fraudulent practices in borrowing and lending money. The entities that Trump supposedly defrauded were big multi-national banks worth billions of dollars, so at least Ms. James is sticking up for the little guy.
In the case, Ms. James argued that Donald Trump had over-inflated the value of his property, claiming that his Mar-a-Lago estate was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, when, she believed that the property was only worth a fraction of that. And because of that vast discrepancy, she charged Trump with fraud. It did not matter that the banks who were loaning Trump the money, had hired a third-party appraiser to value the collateral property before approving the loan and deciding the interest rate. Any bank that does not use a third-party independent appraiser to value the collateral property before approving a loan will not stay in business very long. But Laticia James believes that her assessment of the value of Trump’s property should take precedent over the actual appraiser’s value of the property.
But Ms. James let the cat out of the bag yesterday, and it is a surprise that no one in the media has picked up on the fraud that slipped out of her lips. Blinded by both her arrogance and ignorance, Ms. James taunted Trump by claiming that she will seize Donald Trump’s property to cover the $450 million in fines that he owes. But didn’t she just spend months arguing that his property was not even $100 million? How could his property be worth less $100 million last month, and now suddenly be seized to pay off a $450 million fine today? Who is actually committing fraud by intentionally misrepresenting the value Trump’s property?
You could argue that she’s referring to different property, but that should not matter because the loans were secured against Trump’s entire net worth, not just a single piece of property. In the trial, the Deutsche Bank's former risk management executive told the court that Deutsche Bank's $378 million in loans to the Trump Organization was a "good credit decision." Deutsche Bank executive, David Williams, verified the “material facts” in Trump’s finances, by going to Trump Tower in December 2011 to review bank and brokerage statements, and verified there was $51.8 million in marketable securities and $178 million cash balances.
Former Deutsche Bank executive Nicholas Haigh testified that the bank and Donald Trump had a “long and satisfactory relationship." He also testified that the bank had done "a reasonably thorough analysis of the information," and "using a Deutsche Bank-adjusted value for the assets, [Trump’s] net worth still exceeded $2.5 billion." By law, if the loan went into default, the bank would have the right to go after all of Trump’s assets in order to satisfy the outstanding debt. They could put a judgement lien on all of his property, essentially what Leticia James is doing to cover the fines which exceed the amount of the loans. She is not smart enough to understand that her statement of seizing Trump’s property undermines her entire case and proved no fraud was committed.
Juxtapose this ruling against Donald Trump to the executive order that Joe Biden signed this week which states that he is relieving $1.2 billion of student loan debt. Obviously, this is an election year ploy by Biden in order to buy votes of people with student loan debt. He is telling the people, ‘If you have an outstanding student loan, if I get reelected, the government will pay $10,000 of your loan for you’. He is purchasing votes for $10,000 each. That is fraud, that is voter fraud, and it should be prosecuted as a crime, but it won’t be. He is purchasing hundreds of thousands of votes in plain sight, and the mainstream media thinks it is wonderful.
Let’s compare the two borrowers though. Donald Trump, with billions of dollars of net worth and property, takes out loans to expand his empire, and pays all the loans back on time and makes the banks who gave him the loans so much money that they all want to continue to do business with him. He is their cash cow. He is their ideal borrower. He should be rewarded. But what are they doing to him? Fining him $450 million.
Compare him to the people who took out hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans, and didn’t pay them back. They make late payments, they miss payments, they go into default, they make it harder for others to get loans, and those are the borrowers that Joe Biden is rewarding. He is not fining them for their delinquency; he is not trying to throw them in jail for fraud; he is rewarding people who borrow more money than they can pay back without any collateral. He doesn’t punish the colleges and universities that exploited the guaranteed student loan program to price gouge their tuition and send their graduates off with interminable debt. He doesn’t fine or punish the banks who took advantage of 18-year-olds, by loaning them hundreds of thousands of dollars with no collateral and no job, imprisoning them in debt for the rest of their lives. They don’t punish any of the entities who turned college tuition and student loans into a national nightmare, burying an entire generation under trillions of dollars of debt. No, the government bails out that fraud.
They only punish the person who took out loans, built buildings, created jobs, paid everyone back, made everyone involved loads of money, and added billions of dollars of value to the country. That’s the guy they are punishing, not Joe Biden who is using $1.2 billion of taxpayer money to brazenly purchase votes; not any of the people whose dirty hands are all over the corrupt college tuition and student loan scheme. No. Trump, who is the only one mentioned here who didn’t defraud anyone, is the only one getting punished for fraud, and they live under the delusion that by convicting that one innocent man, they are cleaning up the corruption in lending industry.
While the New York District Attorney and New York prosecutors are getting Trump, New York City is being destroyed by an illegal immigrant crime wave that goes mostly unpunished. In January, 7 illegal immigrants beat up cops in New York City and were allowed to walk free and travel to California to commit other felonies there. And what is the Mayor of New York, Eric Adams response? He is giving illegal immigrants – foreign nationals who willfully broke our federal immigration laws – $10K refillable cash cards. He is rewarding criminal behavior. So, I guess certain people are above the law, Leticia James. And the only thing that your case proved was that there are indeed two sets of laws for people in this country, and certain former Presidents are not held to the same standards as everyday Americans because if they were Joe Biden would have the taxpayers, pay back Donald Trump’s loans.
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J Garrett is a graduate from Princeton University. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.