The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments, but also mentions “excessive fines” and bail. The “excessive fines” clause surfaces (among other places) in cases of civil and criminal forfeiture. [TEXT and SOURCE]
In New York state, Attorney General Letitia James, in coordination with New York Judge Arthur Engoron, are seeking to continue the targeting of President Donald Trump with a series of financial judgements, penalties and control mechanisms intended to isolate the leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate from his wealth.
As if something akin to the John Galt character in Atlas Shrugged was coming to life, no American individual has ever faced this level of intentional weaponization of power. If the state appellate court does not intervene, I predict a federal judge will have to get involved. The reason is simple; the State of New York is clearly violating the 8th Amendment, and despite the compromised judiciary, the scale of overreach is even beyond the ability of the pretending judicial system to overlook it.
Perhaps, oddly, despite my intense anger toward these creatures of corruption, I fear not for the final outcome. I fully accept that a righteous and loving God has favor upon Mr. Trump, and there is a protection around him. It is a feeling, a sense about things, that is difficult to explain beyond, “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.”
NEW YORK – The New York attorney general’s office has filed judgments in Westchester County, the first indication that the state is preparing to try to seize Donald Trump’s golf course and private estate north of Manhattan, known as Seven Springs.
State lawyers entered the judgments with the clerk’s office in Westchester County on March 6, just one week after Judge Arthur Engoron made official his $464 million decision against Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization.
[…] Trump now has four days to satisfy the judgment or sway an appeals court to allow him to post a smaller amount or defer posting the payment until after the appeal.
[…] The attorney general’s office on Wednesday said that it’s common for large companies to post billion-dollar bonds and suggested Trump should have posted real estate with the court.
“The suggestion is both impractical and unjust. The Attorney General cites no New York case law to support this contention. In any event, from the perspective of risk, the Attorney General’s proposal of a ‘court-appointed officer’ to ‘hold real estate’ is functionally equivalent to what Supreme Court has already imposed through the requirement of a court-appointed monitor to oversee Defendants’ business operations,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
[…] “By demanding an undertaking in the full amount of the judgment in order to appeal, the Attorney General and Supreme Court have sought to impose a patently unreasonable, unjust, and unconstitutional (under both the Federal and New York State Constitutions) bond condition,” they wrote.
[…] Thursday, Engoron expanded the role of the monitor overseeing the Trump Organization to include more expansive oversight of Trump’s real estate business’ internal financial practices.
[…] “The Trump Organization shall inform the monitor, in advance, of any efforts to secure surety bonds, including any financial disclosures requested or required, any information provided in response to such requests, any representations made by Trump Organization in connection with securing such bonds any personal guarantees made by any of the defendants, and any obligations of the Trump Organization required by the surety,” the judge ordered.
Engoron laid out a timeline of certain steps the Trumps must take within the next month, including providing the monitor, retired Judge Barbara Jones, with full access to its day-to-day financial operations. (more)
Keep in mind, the original civil charge against President Trump revolves around inverting a state statute intended to protect the consumer from predatory lending. To construct her case, AG James had to reverse the statute and make President Trump a predatory borrower, despite the lenders saying they had no issue with the paperwork used by President Trump to secure reconciled bank loans.
All the banks and lenders did their own due diligence on the financing in question. All operational loans and business loans were paid back. There were no defaults or banking interests adversely impacted. There are no victims of what the State calls “fraud,” yet activist judge Engoron ruled against Donald Trump and triggered a fine of nearly half a billion dollars.
Additionally, New York Attorney General Latisha James campaigned for office with promises to target the Trump Organization and Donald Trump himself. This is transparent and malicious Lawfare in the extreme, and every member of the legal profession, sans ideological leftists/communists, calls it exactly that.