(AFP) – A US court threw out Thursday a $464 million civil penalty against President Donald Trump imposed by a judge who found he fraudulently inflated his personal worth, calling the sum “excessive” but upholding the judgment against him. Judge Arthur Engoron ruled against Trump in February 2024 at the height of his campaign to retake the White House, which coincided with several active criminal prosecutions that the Republican slammed as “lawfare.”
“It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform Thursday, adding that “everything I did was absolutely CORRECT and, even, PERFECT.” When Engoron originally ruled against Trump, he ordered the mogul-turned-politician to pay $464 million, including interest, while his sons Eric and Don Jr. were told to hand over more than $4 million each. The judge found that Trump and his company had unlawfully inflated his wealth and manipulated the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.
Alongside the financial hit to Trump, the judge also banned him from running businesses for three years, which the president repeatedly referred to as a “corporate death penalty.” On Thursday, five judges of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court upheld the verdict, but ruled that the size of the fine was “excessive” and that it “violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” The Eighth Amendment prohibits excessive or cruel punishments and penalties.
State Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the initial case, vowed to take Thursday’s ruling to the state’s highest court, the New York Court of Appeals. Thursday’s appeals court ruling “affirmed the well-supported finding of the trial court: Donald Trump, his company, and two of his children are liable for fraud,” James added.
Following the initial verdict, Trump subsequently sought to challenge the civil ruling as well as the scale and terms of the penalty, which has continued to accrue interest while he appeals. He repeatedly condemned the case and the penalty as politically motivated. His son Don Jr. termed the appellate court ruling a “massive win!!!” “New York Appeals Court has just THROWN OUT President Trump’s $500+ Million civil fraud penalty! It was always a witch hunt, election interference, and a total miscarriage of justice… and even a left leaning NY appeals court agrees! NO MORE LAWFARE!” he wrote on X.
During hearings, conducted without a jury under state law, Trump accused then-president Joe Biden of driving the case, calling it “weaponization against a political opponent who’s up a lot in the polls.” As the case was civil, not criminal, there was no threat of imprisonment. Trump’s economic advisor Peter Navarro said at the White House Thursday that “James is another one that belongs in jail,” referring to the New York attorney general. “The Democrats really overplayed their hand on this because they thought they could take Donald Trump out,” he said.
– Gregory WALTON, with Aurelia END at the White House.
© 2024 AFP
