Last week, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay nearly $355 million in damages after a lengthy trial for fraud in New York in a case where there was no victim. New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who campaigned on getting Trump, sued him for allegedly inflating his assets to get a loan, and Engoron, another Democrat partisan, agreed.
"Every single real estate developer everywhere on earth does this. They always talk about their asset[s] being worth a lot and the bank says 'no' and that's just the way it is," famed investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary told CNN last month. "If you're going to sue this case and win, you got to sue every real estate developer everywhere."
Did it matter that the loan was paid off and there was no victim? Nope. Did it matter that it is standard practice for people seeking a loan to paint their financial situations in the most positive light? Nope. Did it matter that the bank that Trump is accused of defrauding testified in Trump's defense? Nope. There's no doubt that the results of this trial were preordained by people with a partisan axe to grind.
And the consequences could destroy New York.
“That fact that he was found guilty, you might as well find guilty every real estate developer on Earth,” O’Leary told the New York Post. “I don’t understand where someone got hurt … What developer doesn’t ask for the highest price valued for any building they built?”
“It’s not healthy for the country,” he continued. “I want this reviewed and appealed and turned over because it’s wrong for everybody that participates.”
He also added, “If this judgment sticks. Every developer must be jailed. They must be found guilty. They must be put out of business. You can’t do this to one another. It’s not about Trump.”
“It’s appalling. It’s unjust. I would go as far [as] to say it’s un-American,” he added.
In a separate interview with Fox Business after the verdict, O'Leary told Neil Cavuto that he and others won't invest in New York because of this decision.
“It doesn’t matter what the governor says, New York was already a loser state. Like California’s a loser state. There are many loser states because of policy, high taxes, uncompetitive regulation, it was already on the top of the list of being a loser state. I would never invest in New York now, and I’m not the only person saying that,” he said.
O'Leary used the example of high-end data centers, which are a booming asset class in the real estate sector right now, and asked who would invest in New York.
Do you think any foreign institution or any private equity firm or any pension fund would touch New York? No. And that's why New Yorkers should be concerned. The fine people of New York should ask themselves, "Why are we such a loser state?" "How are we going to attract business?" It's not just the existing businesses that are fleeing out to Texas and Florida. What about new money like this? I'm talking about, like, a $4 billion data center. Not a chance I would put that in New York, zero probability, never. And so they've got a lot of work to do to find themselves getting out of this situation.
O'Leary is right. New York already had its problems, but why risk investing there anymore? This may have been about hurting Trump at first, but who will take the risk? Frankly, if New York suffers from this, it won't just be Engoron's fault. It will be the entire system that allowed Letitia James to sue Trump under a bogus pretense just because she wanted to get Trump for something.
