Then let’s pause and consider: Is it fair to require Trump to post a bond of this magnitude to be able to appeal the judgment against him — $464 million, including interest?
Look, no one more deserves to be mistreated, and no one more deserves a system rigged against him, than Trump.
I woke up on Tuesday morning to his latest assertion — which hit particularly close to home — that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.” How dare he lecture me about what it means to be a good Jew?
But the rule of law counsels — in fact, it demands — treating the most repulsive among us with the same due process and other elements of fair treatment accorded to more sympathetic characters. Without that, we all sink to the level of Trump, who would eagerly abuse the legal system to punish his enemies and satisfy his hunger for revenge.
We are better than that, and the current glee over Trump’s financial predicament threatens to let our Trump derangement syndrome, however understandable, override bedrock principles of fairness.
I hear you sputtering, so let me explain. The ability to contest a civil judgment against you has never been deemed a constitutional right, but the concept of appeal is baked into our legal system. After all, lower courts and juries get things wrong. Still, the ability to bring an appeal isn’t unlimited. Someone who has been socked with a huge civil penalty, as Trump has, shouldn’t be allowed to use the legal system merely to postpone the day of reckoning.
That is why parties seeking to overturn judgments against them are required to post bond — essentially, a guarantee by a third party that they will pay up if it comes to that. The party posting the bond gets the benefit of court review. Meanwhile, the other side — the individual or entity, in this case the people of New York, through state Attorney General Letitia James — has the benefit of knowing that the money will be there if the damage award is upheld.
The complication arises in this situation because the size of the judgment is so massive. Trump was accused, and found liable for, grossly inflating the value of his properties in financial documents. That enabled him, James argued, to obtain better deals on loans and insurance.
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron — in New York, the Supreme Court is the trial-level court — agreed, finding that Trump and other defendants had submitted “blatantly false financial data.” Engoron ordered Trump to repay $354 million, plus interest, to disgorge his ill-gotten profits. “The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience,” the judge concluded.
The essence of Trump’s argument on appeal is that the supposed harm he caused was minimal at best — all his lenders were repaid — and that the penalty levied against him was therefore wildly excessive. The conundrum is that the very size of the judgment, and the consequent size of the bond that Trump is required to post, might make him unable to appeal. Trump could pursue his case, but in the meantime, James would be entitled to seize and sell off the former president’s assets.
That can’t be right. It would mean that the more outrageous and disproportionate a damages award is, the harder it is to appeal.
As Trump’s lawyers argued to the state appeals court: “A bond requirement of this enormous magnitude, effectively requiring cash reserves approaching $1 billion, is unprecedented for a private company. Even when it comes to publicly traded companies, courts routinely waive or reduce the bond amount. Enforcing an impossible bond requirement as a condition of appeal would inflict manifest irreparable injury” on Trump.
On the other side of the equation, Trump’s lawyers argue, “waiving the bond requirement will impose no cognizable harm on the Attorney General. The case involves no actual victims and no award of restitution, and she is fully protected by [Trump’s] real-estate holdings.” They have offered to post a $100 million bond.
For her part, James contends that the court lacks the flexibility to modify the bond requirement. And doing so, she says, “would severely harm [the Office of Attorney General] and the public interest by undermining … the fundamental purpose of an appeal bond — i.e., to ensure that prevailing plaintiffs have their monetary award fully secured to guarantee prompt execution if it is affirmed on appeal.”
I’m not convinced. You won’t find me shedding any tears for Trump if the damages award is eventually upheld and he needs to sell properties or liquidate other assets to satisfy it. Couldn’t happen to a shadier guy. But even Trump deserves his day in appeals court. In the end, the rule of law will be on a steadier footing if he has it.
Credit: Source link
