The law he was sued under penalizes fraud, illegal acts, and persistent fraud. He was sued under a theory of persistent fraud. Fraud is an intentional misrepresentation. That dispenses with number 5, the only one that really deserves a serious rebuttal.
3… What are you even talking about?
4, 1, and 2 are just distinctions without a difference. “Case doesn’t involve a third party?” Advertising? You’ve got to be *****ing me…
Your complaint is apparently that they’re not perfectly identical, not that they’re not similar.
They are similar.
The state of New York has an interest in preserving the stability of corporate banks. New York consumers stand to be harmed by bank failures and improper speculative lending or poor risk management is a known cause of bank failures.
New York has used Executive Law 63(12) to punish attempts to illegally escape regulations that limit under-secured lending. They’re now using it to punish persistent intentional misrepresentations of banks’ exposure to risk. In both cases, the risk portfolio was skewed by knowingly reporting an inflated value on properties.
Those are the similarities and they’re closely related to what people thought was relevant before you all found out that the First American case had taken place and suddenly wanted to talk about advertising and third parties.
The First American case was solely based on them being appraisers. read your own link, every single paragraph specifically mentioned them as appraisers, the associated standards of them being appraisers, and their work and advertisement as appraisers. its pretty common as a professional that if you aren't legally an appraiser, in this situation, you can't advertise yourself as such. maintaining the relevant standards of whatever you are claiming to be is part of that, and thus part of their fraud. you brought up that case not me. I asked if all these Trump businesses were under a similar requirement of professionalism for whatever they are. If they aren't, then its not similar; if they are, then it is similar. I haven't seen an answer to what standard these companies are held to so its impossible for me to say.
First American was fraud because the people doing it knew they were wrong and were doing to mislead others to the point of harm. None of that has been shown to be the case with Trump.
any loan is a risk. the problem here is the state disagrees with both the banks and Trumps assessment of the property value he was using as collateral. Neither the bank nor Trump thought it was an issue. and its blatantly obvious the New York AG isn't an unbiased third party here. the state thought it was an issue only after they went out and got a COMMICALLY low appraisal for Trump's properties. I mean straight up laughable, again Mar-a-lago appraising for anything less than 100 million is laughable just based on appreciation. 38 years it only gained 8 million dollars in value according to New York. Several articles have noted that the same AG office turned down CRIMINAL cases to go after this one civil case regarding the same loans. its pretty clear why, much lower standards where they don't have to be objective.
I asked and haven't seen an answer, are these financial disclosure required to be based on an (clearly biased) appraisal? that's what it comes down to. What is the standard for these disclosures? because it seems like the state just went out and made up a requirement.
Also my understanding, from someone else's post ITT, is that these disclosures aren't limited to the actual collateral. Trump has to disclose everything, I would assume that why its called a disclosure, unless I am being misled by CNN on the term. so in this case the banks would only be under undue illegal risk from Trump if Trump was lying about the values he had up as collateral. if he was honest about those, then there was no undue risk to the banks or the people if he lied about Mar-a-Lago being worth 738 million. I would think any history Trump has with this bank also come into play. If Trump had multiple loans with these guys, and was current on all them, they may not be too worried about another loan to the same guy who is already in good standing with them and not looked to hard at the amounts listed. idk maybe this was Trump's first loan with them which is why it raised flags
and based on the laws in question there doesn't seem to be an objective line that Trump crossed if he was lying about the value. If Trump claimed it was worth 738 million, and it was worth 737 million is that too much? a million bucks is a lot of money, especially if you consider he was off by that much on multiple properties. 700? 500? again this application of the law is straight up scary because there is no hard line. and without a hard line trying to compare it to an appraiser gone bad is laughable.
and if the argument is this is still an undue risk to the banks, at this point, it seems like the banks are guilty of the same thing Trump is. Endangering the nebulous wellbeing of New Yorkers. I didn't seem them get fined or shut down in this judges ruling. which to me circles back to a clearly biased AG looking for anything they can subjectively blame Trump for.
www.forbes.com
