New York Attorney General Letitia James has decided the Trump organization defrauded banks by making up valuations of properties. What does it mean to defraud someone or be a fraud? The textbook definition is “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.” This Definition likely requires The State of New York to sue itself. Let’s Discuss why.
The State of New York claims to have a multi-pronged case against Trump. Trump defrauded property taxes by undervaluation and banks by overvaluation. He supposedly used these overvaluations to reap huge benefits. In almost all fraud cases there is some “damaged” party. Some persons or entities lost money or were harmed in some other way. The argument would have to be that Trump harmed the banks and/or the state with his valuations.
So, who does tax valuations on properties for tax purposes? If you own a house, do you determine how much you pay? Nope, the state does. Can they be disputed? Sure. In the state of Illinois, Gov. J. D. Pritzker infamously had the toilets removed in his home. This way he could be taxed for less money because the home was uninhabitable. So far, there is no charge of fraud because he is a Democrat. Then again was there a damaged party? Only if someone needed to use the bathroom.
Who Was Harmed in Trump’s Case?
So did Trump do similar things to cheat on taxes? Well maybe. However, when The IRS audited him, they didn’t find it. As for the state, if they underappraised Trump properties didn’t New York defraud themselves out of Trump’s tax money?
If not the state, then it must be the Banks, right? New York doesn’t usually come to the plate to help out Chase Bank or Deutsche Bank. This time big bad Trump ripped off the huge rich banks by not paying enough interest. Really? Did he make Jamie Dimon‘s stock go down a quarter of a point? This is the argument. Chase Bank only makes like $40 Billion a quarter It should have been more! Is that even enough to undo the damage BLM and Antifa did? So, do these banks just accept Trump at his word? He says, yeah this is worth $50 billion so it must be so. That doesn’t sound like a good business model to us.
The Banks probably do their due diligence and determine if the loan is a good bet. Now if they were cheated out of money in a scam they would probably sue with their own suit. Notice they haven’t joined the case to get their missing interest back. They won’t either because if they did it could open a bag of worms leading to many suits against them. Imagine if you could sue the bank for charging you too much interest. We paid way too much on the pony farm, thank you, off to court we go!!
Regardless of the Outcome
DogFacePonia Legal Advisor Michael Grant told us “This is a textbook case of fraud. The State of New York will need to sue itself and the Attorney General, regardless of the outcome.”
As we go back to the definition “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.” If the state wins, will it give the money to the banks harmed in deep generosity? Nope, which means they have deceitfully and wrongfully obtained the money. If they lose it will mean that they defrauded themselves as they undervalued Trump properties. Either way, AG is trying to get Trump to boost herself for personal gain. Finally, it has created this silly suit to wrongful attempt to gain 250 million from the Trump Organization. Which based on state tax records probably isn’t worth $250 million. In all this, it seems the only people wrongfully harmed are Trump and his family.
Image From: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
