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parking place for trump case posts

Just a parking place - will add more later!
"If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."


Mon Oct 23 2023:
During his speech, Trump said he would have “plenty of votes”—enough that instead of voting, his fans should “get out there and watch those voters,” presumably referring to supporters of his eventual opponent. “You don’t have to vote, don’t worry about voting. The voting, we got plenty of votes.”



Mr. Christie, who as a U.S. attorney prosecuted Mr. Kushner’s father, singled out the business dealings of the former president’s son-in-law.

“Jared Kushner, six months after he leaves the White House, gets $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund,” he said. “What was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East? We had Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo as secretaries of state. We didn’t need Jared Kushner. He was put there to make those relationships, and then he cashed in on those relationships when he left the office.”

While in the White House, Mr. Kushner bolstered ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia, convincing his father-in-law to make the kingdom his first foreign destination as president, helping broker billions of dollars in arms sales and forging a close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Mr. Kushner defended Prince Mohammed after Saudi operatives murdered Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Post and United States resident. The C.I.A. concluded that Prince Mohammed ordered the 2018 killing. In 2021, Prince Mohammed’s sovereign wealth fund approved the $2 billion investment in Mr. Kushner’s new firm despite objections from the fund’s own advisers.



Letter from the SouthGeorgia’s Broad Racketeering Law May Now Ensnare Donald Trump
Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, often relies on Georgia’s capacious rico statute—though critics say that she has stretched it past the law’s intentJuly 31, 2023


In 2013, Fani Willis served as the lead prosecutor in what is still the longest criminal trial ever held in Georgia. Teachers and administrators in Atlanta public schools had been accused, a few years before, of cheating on standardized tests. A special report commissioned by Georgia’s governor concluded that a hundred and seventy-eight educators—including more than three dozen principals and a superintendent—had participated in “organized and systemic misconduct” since at least 2001. Teachers were giving children answers and altering incorrect responses, investigators reported; administrators were offering financial incentives to those who abetted the cheating and punishing those who did not. One teacher, who admitted to changing test answers, told investigators, “APS is run like the Mob.”
The Fulton County district attorney’s office agreed: the county indicted thirty-five educators and administrators for conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or rico—a statute that, historically, is associated with the prosecution of Mafia figures. Willis, in her opening statement, explained how such charges could be applied in the case. “You don’t, under RICO, have to have a formal, sit-down dinner meeting where you eat spaghetti,” she said, seemingly invoking a scene from “Goodfellas.” “But what you do have to do is all be doing the same thing for the same purpose. You all have to be working towards that same goal. In this case, the goal—inflate test scores illegally.”
. . .
Georgia created its rico statute in 1980, less to target the Mafia than to go after Black street gangs and “nontraditional conspiracies,” as Norman Eisen, a former trial lawyer and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, put it to me. (The Georgia Assembly cited the need to address “the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements.”)
But the Georgia law didn’t require prosecutors to demonstrate an underlying criminal enterprise, only the commission of a range of illegal acts that furthered a single criminal goal. “Because of its breadth,” Eisen said, “Georgia prosecutors are more prone to utilize their criminal rico provision as a vehicle for major cases.” It’s one of the best places in the country for deploying such a provision, he added. Volkan Topalli, a professor of criminology at Georgia State, told me that the state’s generous statute helps create a “whirlpool effect” in the prosecution of criminal conspiracies: “If you capture one person in the whirlpool, everyone else gets sucked in along with them.”



“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.

“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”

In the statement, Kelly is confirming, on the record, a number of details in a 2020 story in The Atlantic by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, including Trump turning to Kelly on Memorial Day 2017, as they stood among those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, and saying, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

... in which Trump, after a separate trip to France in 2017, tells Kelly he wants no wounded veterans in a military parade he’s trying to have planned in his honor. Inspired by the Bastille Day parade, except for the section of the parade featuring wounded French veterans in wheelchairs, Trump tells Kelly, “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade.”

“Those are the heroes,” Kelly said. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are – and they are buried over in Arlington.”

“I don’t want them,” Trump said. “It doesn’t look good for me.”
MarthannBann888 · 70-79, F
@ElwoodBlues well, we will see how you feel when they take your property. That will happen. Before now, people had the freedom to value their own property as they chose. If they were idiots, nobody did business with them. Now, we don’t have the freedom to do that. So now, some government person tells us that they will value our property. If we get on their bad side they take what we have away. What we have is no longer inviolate. I now have the freedom to think what you want me to think. If I don’t you call me names and ruin me. So, you have all the power. Right and wrong don’t matter. All that stuff you put up there shows me you don’t respect the time other people have to read it all. And, like the liberal judge, it’s all their opinion. They don’t think my property is mine.
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@MarthannBann888 So you're a full fledged cult member, good to know!!


In New York State, it's against the law to falsify business records. Has been since the 1960s.

[i]"The law under which Ms. James sued, known by its shorthand 63(12), requires the plaintiff to show a defendant’s conduct was deceptive. If that standard is met, a judge can impose severe punishment, including forfeiting the money obtained through fraud. Ms. James has also used this law against the oil company ExxonMobil, the tobacco brand Juul and the pharma executive Martin Shkreli."[/i]

Among the documents Trump falsified were SFCs (Statements of Financial Condition). He did that partly by feeding false info to and concealing liabilities from his accounting firm, Mazars. That's why Mazars dumped Trump back in Feb 2022.

The statute Trump violated is New York Executive Law EXC § 63(12). The purpose is to take away the incentive for cheating by forcing disgorgement of profits made from cheating. If a scam artist makes $350 mil from cheating and you only fine him $50 mil, that makes cheating VERY profitable - you can't deny it.

[u] Trump falsified business records involving:[/u]
Trump Tower triplex apartment
40 Wall St
Vornado Realty Trust
Trump Park Ave
Seven Springs
Briarcliffe
Mar-a-Lago
Trump National Golf Club LA
Aberdeen Golf Course

Trump is thus required by law to disgorge profits made from these falsifications.

For complete details, see
[b]https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/02/Judge-Engoron-ruling-in-Trump-New-York-civil-fraud-case.pdf[/b]



Valuing occupied residences as if vacant, valuing restricted land as if unrestricted, valuing an apartment as if it were triple its actual size, valuing property many times the amount of concealed appraisals, valuing planned buildings as if completed and ready to rent, valuing golf courses with brand premium while claiming not to, and valuing restricted funds as cash, are not subjective differences of opinion, they are misstatements at best and fraud at worst," the judge wrote.



(1) Witnesses testified that the banks did rely on Trump's fraudulent claims.
(2) Witnesses testified that if they had had an accurate picture of Trump's financial state, he would not have gotten the highly favorable interest rates that he got. If Trump had filed accurate statements he would have had to pay much, much more interest (if they would have given the loans at all).
(3) The penalty was calculated based on that, and the details are all spelled out in the ruling. He defrauded the banks out of the higher interest he would have had to pay in order to get the loans. "No harm was done" is plainly false.
(4) The "no harm was done" defense is so insanely dumb that Trump's lawyers didn't even attempt it in court. (But see the update below for a related "nobody complained" defense.)
Think about how little sense it makes. If you embezzle a million dollars Friday just before the banks close, fly to vegas and bet it all on red at the roulette wheel, and win, and return the million dollars plus interest on Monday as soon as the banks open, would you expect a "no one got hurt" defense to get you acquitted when you go to trial?
Edited to add quotes from the ruling:
(1) For example, p. 9:
In deciding to approve the credit facility, Haigh relied on Donald Trump’s 2011 SFC and assumed that the representations of value of the assets and liabilities were “broadly accurate.” TT 1009-1010; PX 330. The Deutsche Bank Credit Report’s “Financial Analysis” is based on numbers provided by the “family office” (here, the Trump Organization) and contains the same numbers represented in the SFC. PX 293; TT 1010-1013.
And p. 68:
The evidence adduced at trial makes clear that Deutsche Bank relied on the SFCs for the information to underwrite, approve, and maintain the credit facilities on Doral, Trump Chicago, and the Old Post Office. PX 293, PX 3041 at ¶¶ 452-54, 456-466, 476.
And more. And on p. 75 it discusses how absurd this defense was:
Defendants have argued vociferously throughout the trial that there can be no fraud as, they assert, that none of the banks or insurance companies relied on any of the alleged misrepresentations. The proponents of this theory posit that lenders demand complex statements of financial condition but then ignore them.
And (next paragraph) it wouldn't make any difference as a matter of law:
Defendants’ argument is to no avail, as none of plaintiff’s causes of action requires that it demonstrate reliance. Instead, plaintiff must merely show that defendants intended to commit the fraud. Reliance is not a requisite element of either Executive Law § 63(12) or of any of the alleged Penal Law violations.
And (next paragraph) even though it wasn't a requisite element, the claim made by the defense is clearly false:
However, the Court notes that, although not required, there is ample documentary and testimonial evidence that the banks, insurance companies, and the City of New York did, in fact, rely on defendants to be truthful and accurate in their financial submissions. The testimony in this case makes abundantly clear that most, if not all, loans began life based on numbers on an SFC, which the lenders interpreted in their own unique way. The testimony confirmed, rather than refuted, the overriding importance of SFCs in lending decisions.
(2) p. 68:
The record is also clear that Donald Trump would not have received the credit facilities from the Private Wealth Management Division, and the favorable interest rates that came with that, had he not executed an unconditional, “ironclad,” personal guarantee. Moreover, the Private Wealth Management Division was willing to accept the personal guarantees based upon false SFCs.
(3) Here's part of the "disgorgement of ill-gotten gains" calculation, from p. 86:
McCarty calculated the differences between interest rates and determined the following ill-gotten interest savings, which this Court hereby adopts as the most reasonable approximation of the ill- gotten interest rate savings upon which evidence was presented at trial: (1) $72,908,308 from 2014-2022 on the Doral loan; (2) $53,423,209 from 2015-2022 on the Old Post Office loan; (3) $17,443,359 from 2014-2022 on the Chicago loan; and (4) $24,265,291 from 2015-2022 on the 40 Wall Street loan.
In total, defendants’ fraud saved them approximately $168,040,168 in interest, which shall be imposed, jointly and severally, among Donald Trump and the defendant entities that he owns and controls, as the misconduct at issue was committed by the Trump Organization’s top management.
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@MarthannBann888 You expect consistency from the lying sack of corruption??

Here is the clip on twitter:

https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1716590839009624303
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specman · 51-55, M
I’m still voting for Trump he is the best candidate to pick from. If the Democrats stay in charge this country will no longer be inhabited by Americans only illegals. Not to mention all the Palestinians whose number one goal is to destroy America that we are going to end up bringing over here from the new port they are building over there.
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windinhishair · 61-69, M
@MarthannBann888 I wouldn't know. How does it feel to you?
windinhishair · 61-69, M
@MarthannBann888 Your CAPS key is broken. You can take classes that will help you figure out how to use it.
lumberjackslam · 41-45, M
Yes the poor helpless banks need Tish to protect them from making loans to Trump, at interest. Hahahah.
MarthannBann888 · 70-79, F
@ElwoodBlues ELWOOD******NOBODY GOT CHEATED!
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@MarthannBann888 Nobody got cheated??

p. 9:
In deciding to approve the credit facility, Haigh relied on Donald Trump’s 2011 SFC and assumed that the representations of value of the assets and liabilities were “broadly accurate.” TT 1009-1010; PX 330. The Deutsche Bank Credit Report’s “Financial Analysis” is based on numbers provided by the “family office” (here, the Trump Organization) and contains the same numbers represented in the SFC. PX 293; TT 1010-1013.

And p. 68:
The evidence adduced at trial makes clear that Deutsche Bank relied on the SFCs for the information to underwrite, approve, and maintain the credit facilities on Doral, Trump Chicago, and the Old Post Office. PX 293, PX 3041 at ¶¶ 452-54, 456-466, 476.

p. 75:
Defendants have argued vociferously throughout the trial that there can be no fraud as, they assert, that none of the banks or insurance companies relied on any of the alleged misrepresentations. The proponents of this theory posit that lenders demand complex statements of financial condition but then ignore them.

Lemme repeat that last item: [i][b] The proponents of this theory posit that lenders demand complex statements of financial condition but then ignore them.[/b][/i]
sree251 · 41-45, M
Why do you hate Trump so much, Elwood?
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