Continuing our thoughts from yesterday. Today, we want to discuss two other big trials that are going to happen in 2023. One is the State of New York's civil action against the Trump business empire; the other is Dominion's defamation suit against Fox News.
Both are politically momentous. I happen to believe that the US Justice Department will likely indict Donald Trump himself this year, but the trial on that one will have to be a 2024 spectacular. In the meantime, it has a surrogate: a civil lawsuit that New York's attorney general, Letitia James, is pressing. So, to resume our count ...
FOURTH: the New York civil case.
This lawsuit seeks $250 million in damages from former President Trump, other members of his family, and/or the Trump Organization for having fraudulently misvalued assets in order to cheat banks and insurance companies.
The trial is set to begin this October.
It isn't a crime, nor is it a tort, for a man to overstate the extent of his wealth out of vanity or in order to attract a sexy model. But these were lies about money for the sake of eliciting money, which can well be criminal. And the complaint specifies various loans and insurance policies that it claims were granted because of claims that Trump and his organization made in an annual "Statement of Financial Condition." Their reliance on that statement could create civil and criminal liabilities.
Presumably at trial the extent of that reliance will be a key point of attack for even a moderately competent defense team. "Would the bank not have made the loan to a man who was at the time a successful television star even if the Statement of Financial Condition had been more scrupulously accurate?" they will ask. And it is a good question.
There is also the question of how closely the alleged fraud can be tied to the former President himself. He would surely like to be able to claim exoneration even if his company and for that matter his children are declared frauds. One of those listed as a co-defendant, Weisselberg, has already pleaded guilty to related criminal charges. But Weisselberg has played the part of the willing mafioso fall guy. He has refused to help the authorities against the capo.
We will see how this plays out.
FIFTH: Defaming a manufacturer of voting machines.
Dominion Voting Systems is a Canada-based manufacturer of voting hardware and software. Very soon after the election in November 2020, Trump partisans began claiming that millions of votes for Trump on Dominion manufactured machines had been switched to Biden votes.
Certain Fox News hosts, Jeanine Pirro prominent among them, after reading about it in some of the wilder corners of the internet, began spouting this view on the air. Trumpette attorney Sidney Powell helped spread this idea.
The organized bar and its supervisory bench does maintain some standards of veracity. A federal judge in Michigan officially sanctioned Powell for such claims.
By mid-November, a panicked Fox News producer circulated a memo that Judge Jeanine should be yanked off the air, precisely in order to shield the company from liability. That email will in due course be part of the plaintiffs' case. For Fox News did not yank her and she continued to promote the theory. The relevant executives knew better and let this proceed anyway.
One of Donald Trump's last actions in office was to pardon Jeanine Pirro's husband on old convictions for tax evasion.
The trial will begin in April of this year.
I hope my readers have enjoyed this two-day tip sheet for coming attractions in jurisprudential drama.
You note that the defense will ask, "Would the bank not have made the loan to a man who was at the time a successful television star even if the Statement of Financial Condition had been more scrupulously accurate?" Suppose that the answer is yes, the bank would have made the loan anyway. I am not familiar with the relevant New York statutes, but I would speculate that a "yes" answer would leave Trump still vulnerable criminally, because he would in effect have attempted to commit a crime and attempting to commit a crime is a crime.
ReplyDeleteBut, even civilly, if a "yes" answer would absolve Trump, then that would mean that the law permits attempts at fraud provided that the defendant can show that his attempt was unnecessary. (Or if the burden of proof is on the state, I should say, "if the state cannot prove that his attempt was necessary.") But Trump obviously thought it was necessary, or at least might be necessary, or he wouldn't have attempted it (unless he lies pathologically, which, of course, he does). Again, I'm just speculating, but I'm skeptical that he would be absolved simply because he would have gotten the loan anyway.