Trump Investigations Thread

[Rocinante]

This argument is a little weird.

Fraud is fraud, whether someone was harmed or not.

I'm not weighing in on whether Trump committed fraud. Let's take Trump out of this. If you commit fraud, you're still guilty of fraud, whether someone is directly harmed or not.

If I fill out a form to purchase a firearm, and I put no I am not a drug user, but in reality I smoke crack with Chinese hookers, I've still committed a crime whether or not someone was hurt or not.

 

[Bigking321]

But it's a civil case isn't it? Not from the banks but from the state? Or do I have that wrong.

 

[Blasterbot]

Bzzt, wrong. The harm isn't easilty quantifiable in monetary terms.

fr'ex: if apply for a loan I qualify for and don't get one while someone else who lied on their loan application does get one they don't qualify for then I, personally, have been harmed.

That is not the definition of Harm that the legal world uses.

https://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/harm.html

Harm

harm n

: loss of or damage to a person's right, property, or physical or mental well-being

so try again. what loss or damage was caused to someone's rights, property, physical or mental well being while he got a loan that he paid back.

 

[bintananth]

That is not the definition of Harm that the legal world uses.

https://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/harm.html

so try again. what loss or damage was caused to someone's rights, property, physical or mental well being while he got a loan that he paid back.

Off the top of my head: he got better loan terms than he should have. That is, the mistatements resulted a lower interest rate than he otherwise would have been given ... directly and adversely affecting the lender's bottom line.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Off the top of my head: he got better loan terms than he should have. That is, the mistatements resulted a lower interest rate than he otherwise would have been given ... directly and adversely affecting the lender's bottom line.

Then why isn't the lender party to the suit?

 

[posh-goofiness]

Just to be clear here, @bintananth your acceptance of the terms of this... event... is that the Trump organization inflated the price of their properties to gain advantageous loan terms. The bank the organization went to did not do due diligence in this application about the commercial valuation. This occurred in New York and in Florida. Whatever bank the organization went to Florida also did not do due diligence about the commercial valuation of the Mara Lago property.

The value assessment of the property (touted by the Judge and AG) is the tax assessed value of the property. Am I summarizing this correctly?

 

[JagerIV]

This argument is a little weird.

Fraud is fraud, whether someone was harmed or not.

I'm not weighing in on whether Trump committed fraud. Let's take Trump out of this. If you commit fraud, you're still guilty of fraud, whether someone is directly harmed or not.

If I fill out a form to purchase a firearm, and I put no I am not a drug user, but in reality I smoke crack with Chinese hookers, I've still committed a crime whether or not someone was hurt or not.

Sure, but generally, especially in the case of a civil suit, how much you can charge in damages are relative to, well, damages. If I completely lied to a bank about my revenue to get a $1 million 1 year loan with 100k interest, but was able to turn that loan aground into a revenue stream quickly enough to pay back 1.1 million in return, if you sued for the fraud, what damage did you suffer? Maybe you would have loaned at 5% higher interest rate, so maybe you could say, maybe, that you suffered $50,000 of damages, but that seems even there to push it. Certainly it would be a bit excessive to seize the $10 million business you built on that fraudulent loan, which you were paid back for in full. And it would be completely unconceivable that that fraudulent gives you claim to the $100 million business that existed before the loan.

Likewise on the opposite end of things, if you scam a credit card company out of $250 bucks which you don't repay, that much more serious fraud which did result in actual concrete loss for the Bank, they still don't have a right to seize your house as recompense for that $250 bucks.

If criminally charged, a fraud of up to $1,000 seems to have a financial penalty limit of $10,000. Or 10 years, which seems extreme, but American law often does seem to have ridiculously long prison term, and that is the max, so I assume its probably generally just the fine, or shorter prison terms.

I don't think I've seen any numbers on how large these fraudulent loans actually are. This seems to be resulting in a taking of $100s of millions of dollars of property.

What kind of damages are we actually talking about?

Reading though this list of loans, I'm not exactly sure which of these companies are the one who was damaged by all this.

 

[bintananth]

Welp, in other news ... one of Trumps co-defendants in the Georgia case pleaded guilty today.

First defendant in Trump Georgia case pleads guilty

A co-defendant in the sweeping Georgia election interference case involving former President Trump has become the first to plead guilty in the case. Scott Hall, a bail bond business owner, aft…

thehill.com

 

[DarthOne]

Welp, in other news ... one of Trumps co-defendants in the Georgia case pleaded guilty today.

First defendant in Trump Georgia case pleads guilty

A co-defendant in the sweeping Georgia election interference case involving former President Trump has become the first to plead guilty in the case. Scott Hall, a bail bond business owner, aft…

thehill.com

Who wants to bet they threatened his family or something?

 

[JagerIV]

Welp, in other news ... one of Trumps co-defendants in the Georgia case pleaded guilty today.

First defendant in Trump Georgia case pleads guilty

A co-defendant in the sweeping Georgia election interference case involving former President Trump has become the first to plead guilty in the case. Scott Hall, a bail bond business owner, aft…

thehill.com

Repeat the lie, betray everyone, and the pain will stop. Not that Trump has done a great job defending anyone either. Though maybe he was just in more danger and more precarious than I initially thought.

If this all works, and it looks like it probably will, no sane person will run in opposition. Jan 6 showed that the right is harmless, this is the reward for being harmless.

 

[DarthOne]

If this all works, and it looks like it probably will, no sane person will run in opposition. Jan 6 showed that the right is harmless, this is the reward for being harmless.

Exactly.

 

[bintananth]

Who wants to bet they threatened his family or something?

Not me. Not with that slap-on-the wrist no jail time sentence of probation, a fine, community service, and a written apology.

However, I am willing to bet that he has a very good lawyer who will make sure he understands in no uncertain terms that if even one word of what he says when he's put on the stand to testify isn't 100% true that he just traded that plea deal for an extended all-expenses paid stay at the greybar hotel.

 

[Bigking321]

Huh.

So it was the guy working at the place where the voting machines were examined.

Probably not really connected to Trump then.

My guess is they offered a sweet deal if he pleaded guilty and testified against everyone else for the non crime.

This way all the news platforms can start devoting massive coverage to someone in the Georgia cases being guilty so they all must be, Trump's going down!

Right when the Biden impeachment stuff is happening too.

Weird how whenever another Biden scandal or something breaks a Trump thing immediately happens right after.

Just a crazy coincidence I'm sure.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

No, it's not.

Financial shenanigans of the sort Trump was accused of are pretty easy to prove if someone bothers to do the requisite digging into the mismatched numbers.

Thing is, the banks - who should have said "no, that looks fishy" - didn't because, to quote J. Paul Getty: "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem."

... and each bank looked the other way hoping that they wouldn't be Paul in "Borrow from Peter to pay Paul." when Peter finally says "no".

You are full of shit, what Trump did is no different than what anyone dabbling in real estate does.

Oh well, hopefully the New Right uses this as an excuse to go scorched earth on the legal system. Qualified immunity revocation, laws that allow Judges to be sued by anyone, laws that allow governors to arrest judges mid trial for seditious conduct.

All trials streamed at all times, protesting outside the personal residencies of prosecutors and judges no longer being seen as a misdemeanor in certain states etc etc.

 

[Cherico]

You are full of shit, what Trump did is no different than what anyone dabbling in real estate does.

Oh well, hopefully the New Right uses this as an excuse to go scorched earth on the legal system. Qualified immunity revocation, laws that allow Judges to be sued by anyone, laws that allow governors to arrest judges mid trial for seditious conduct etc.

I think we will get to that point but its going to take a really long time.

People just are not at the rage level for that yet.

 

[posh-goofiness]

@The Immortal Watch Dog Maybe this will unfuck commercial real estate in NYC. I would love to see landlords fucking wrecked over this precedent. Like holy shit, if we can just get summary judgements against any slime bag that overstates their square footage and over charges for thier property... NYC property values will tank to shit.

 

[Terthna]

@The Immortal Watch Dog Maybe this will unfuck commercial real estate in NYC. I would love to see landlords fucking wrecked over this precedent. Like holy shit, if we can just get summary judgements against any slime bag that overstates their square footage and over charges for thier property... NYC property values will tank to shit.

Which just illustrates that such fraudulent business tactics are commonplace, and Trump is being singled out because the establishment hates him.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

I think we will get to that point but its going to take a really long time.

People just are not at the rage level for that yet.

Nah, a summary judgment like this strains legal credulity and I don't know even if it's legal. the proper response to this shouldn't even be appeal filing, it should be state legislatures more or less declaring war on the activist judges in their states.

 

[Bigking321]

I still don't understand the fraud they are claiming.

The valuations they are alleging that put the Florida place at 18 million is utterly absurd. Just in real-estate with nothing on it it's probably well above the 400 million range. And with the business on it? Like or near a billion.

It is a ludicrous assertion that it's only worth 18 million. That falls under lies, damned lies, and statistics.

"I looked really hard and found a tax paper or something saying 18 million. This is different than every evaluation banks actually use to determine loans but we are going with it. FRAUD! Summary judgment. No trial or evidence needed! Dissolve all of your businesses in New York!"

Utter horseshit.

 

[Blasterbot]

I still don't understand the fraud they are claiming.

The valuations they are alleging that put the Florida place at 18 million is utterly absurd. Just in real-estate with nothing on it it's probably well above the 400 million range. And with the business on it? Like or near a billion.

It is a ludicrous assertion that it's only worth 18 million. That falls under lies, damned lies, and statistics.

"I looked really hard and found a tax paper or something saying 18 million. This is different than every evaluation banks actually use to determine loans but we are going with it. FRAUD! Summary judgment. No trial or evidence needed! Dissolve all of your businesses in New York!"

Utter horseshit.

They may be trying to push that what tax collectors assess should be the selling price I guess. a set of government price controls on housing probably would blow up the real estate market pretty quick.