A New York appeals court on Thursday overturned the massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump, ruling the nearly half-billion-dollar fine was ‘excessive’ under the Eighth Amendment.
The five-judge appeals court panel ruled that the $355 million penalty against Trump — not including interest — “is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the Associated Press reported. The total fine levied by Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron against Trump and other executives in the Trump Organization, including Eric and Donald Trump Jr., exceeded $527 million when interest was factored in.
The civil fraud case against Trump was brought by New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James, who alleged that Trump inflated his net worth to gain favorable terms from lenders. Judge Engoron sided with James, finding that between 2014 and 2021, the president overvalued his assets by up to $2.2 billion, CNBC reported. The judge ordered Trump to pay the massive fine, while also barring him from running his business in New York for three years.
While the appeals court threw out the massive fine, it kept the ruling in place that Trump committed fraud, leaving open the option for an appeal to the state’s highest court. The judges also kept the other penalties on Trump’s company in place, but said that the president can seek a further extension of the pause on those penalties.
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“TOTAL VICTORY in the FAKE New York State Attorney General Letitia James Case!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I greatly respect the fact that the Court had the Courage to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful Decision that was hurting Business all throughout New York State. Others were afraid to do business there. The amount, including Interest and Penalties, was over $550 Million Dollars. It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before. This was a Case of Election Interference by the City and State trying to show, illegally, that I did things that were wrong when, in fact, everything I did was absolutely CORRECT and, even, PERFECT.”
Judge David Friedman ripped James for bringing the lawsuit, writing, “Plainly, her ultimate goal was not ‘market hygiene’ … but political hygiene, ending with the derailment of President Trump’s political career and the destruction of his real estate business. The voters have obviously rendered a verdict on his political career. This bench today unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business.”
Appellate Division Judge Peter Moulton said in a concurring opinion that “the calculation of the disgorgement in this case was far from a reasonable approximation.” The panel, however, was divided in its ruling, issuing more than 300 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions, according to the AP. While most of the judges agreed that the penalty was excessive, there was disagreement over whether the attorney general’s lawsuit against Trump was justified. Two judges said it was, but another judge argued that James exceeded her authority, adding that a lawsuit should have been filed by one of Trump’s lenders if they felt cheated, but no lenders took legal action against Trump.
The Democratic attorney general filed the suit against Trump after vowing on the campaign trail to “take on” the then-Republican presidential frontrunner. In one campaign video, James blasted Trump as “incompetent” and “an embarrassment to all that we stand for.” Trump maintained his innocence and fought back against the charges throughout the case, calling the suit a politically motivated “Witch Hunt.”
Trump appealed the civil fraud judgment in February 2024, with his attorney Alina Habba saying, “Letitia James is not going to get away with it; the Biden administration is not going to get away with it.”
“President Trump has done nothing wrong,” Habba added at the time. “All he has done is win a campaign, and that is scaring them because they know when he goes back in November 2024 he is going to clean house, and that is truly the problem.”
In his lengthy post on Truth Social following the court’s decision on Thursday, Trump added that James “only brought this Case in order to hurt me politically.”
“She is a Trump Deranged Lunatic! They made me bond the outrageous sum, which never happened before, and which cost me Millions of Dollars a month. It should have never been allowed to happen, and everyone knew it!”
