Executive Law 65(12) outlaws engaging in “repeated” and “persistent” fraud in business dealings. Well, okay, but if one engaged in such an egregious pattern of behavior, surely we’d expect to find some victims, right? At least one victim? I mean, if you’re going to incinerate a multibillion-dollar international conglomerate, shouldn’t there be, you know, a bank that lost, if not millions in depositor savings, at least a few bucks? Especially if, as in James’s case, at issue are more than a dozen years of financial dealings.

But here: There’s no victim. No harm to any creditor or investor. No bank or insurance company brought in to say, “Donald Trump ruined us … or at least profoundly damaged us … or maybe, you know, shaved a few shekels off some middle-manager’s annual bonus.”

… Whatever you think of Donald Trump, the existential punishment is wildly out of proportion with the negligible harm. For a non-crime, in which no one suffered harm — in which misrepresentations were made not to saps but to sophisticated financial actors who do their own due diligence on valuations — progressive Democrats are closing down a long-established business of a man who, before he became their political enemy, was celebrated as an iconic New York real estate broker.

…This raises two questions: First, how many businesses would emerge unscathed, under the law as New York interprets it, from the kind of examination Trump endured due only to unabashed partisanship? Second, why conduct business in New York if progressive bullies reserve the right to annihilate you over trifles?

[Post edited by JMHoo at 09/29/2023 07:39AM]