Everything about the case in New York City against the Trump Organization business operations is ridiculous. There are no victims. There was no fraud. All of the lenders did their own due diligence. All of the loans were paid back without issue, and the statement of financial condition was factual and accurate. There were no defaults or banking interests adversely impacted. There are no victims of what the State calls “fraud.”
New York Attorney General Latisha James campaigned for office with promises to target the Trump Organization and Donald Trump himself. This is malicious Lawfare in the extreme. Additionally, the statute being used as the predicate for the case is a consumer fraud statute, intended to protect borrowers from predatory lenders. In the four corners of this case, Trump is the borrower, and the banks were the lenders. New York is flipping the statute to claim the borrower defrauded the lenders, despite the lenders denying there was any fraud and there was no harm. The entire case is ridiculous.
Appearing on CNN, O’Leary Ventures Chairman Kevin O’Leary outlines, to a perplexed Laura Coates, why Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York is political nonsense. WATCH (prompted):
TRANSCRIPT – O’LEARY: Well, let’s leave out Trump for a minute, and let’s leave out politics, and just talk about what happens in real estate development anywhere. So, if you’re a developer and you’ve got a building on the block, anywhere in America, and it’s worth, let’s say, $500 million, and you want to build a building right beside it, you go to the bank and say, “This building is worth $500 million. I’d like to borrow a construction finance loan against this asset, and I want you to tell me it’s worth $500 million too.”