Donald Trump got his ass kicked in every borough of New York City in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Except Staten Island, of course. Conventional wisdom holds that New Yorkers at that point had had nearly half a century to learn that the man was a giant elephant turd of a human being and sent the world a message that if we were smart, we’d have blown all the bridges leading off of the island of Manhattan to keep Trump contained like he was the monster in Cloverfield.
So there is a certain karma in Trump, in his autumn years, barreling headlong into the courtroom of another lifelong New Yorker, a judge who held the former president’s fate in his hands and was one of the last people on Earth likely to fall for whatever noises Trump pushed out of his blab hole in his defense. A judge who could call him a fucking moron in much nicer legal language than we will ever manage:
“Overall, Donald Trump rarely responded to the questions asked, and he frequently interjected long, irrelevant speeches on issues far beyond the scope of the trial. His refusal to answer the questions directly, or in some cases, at all, severely compromised his credibility.”
Or as Google Translate put it when we ran this through English-to-New-Yorkese translator function: The balls on this fuckin’ guy!
BEFORE!
There are shivs like this planted throughout Judge Arthur Engoron’s 92-page decision: about Trump, about his two large adult failsons, about this monstrosity of a business that he apparently ran with the deft touch of a badly palsied Godzilla.
Here’s Engoron talking about a moment during Eric Trump’s testimony when he got caught out in a lie:
“Upon being confronted with copious documentary evidence conclusively demonstrating otherwise, he finally conceded that, at least as early as August 20, 2013, he knew about his father’s SFCs (begrudgingly acknowledging: ‘It appears that way, yes’).”
Or as Google Translate would have it: Hey! Fifth Avenue! Take that shit back uptown! You’re in my world down here, ya goddamn ratchet!
Here is Engoron on Ivanka, who was dismissed as a defendant but still had to testify. (Who can forget her request to skip testifying because her kids were in school that week, and she is just a poor single mom who can’t afford a babysitter or a flight from Florida to New York?)
“Ivanka Trump was a thoughtful, articulate, and poised witness, but the Court found her inconsistent recall, depending on whether she was questioned by OAG or the defense, suspect. In any event, what Ms. Trump cannot recall is memorialized in contemporaneous emails and documents; in the absence of her memory, the documents speak for themselves.”
Google Translate: Yeah yeah yeah. Fuckin’ broads.
You will no doubt be shocked to learn that variations of the word “inconsistent” make several appearances in descriptions of testimony from both the Trumps and some of their lackeys.
But it’s really towards the end where Engoron gets to all but call the Trumps self-absorbed psychopaths with all the remorse of a Terminator and all the humanity of a cucumber. Politely, of course:
“After some four years of investigation and litigation, the only error (‘inadvertent,’ of course) that they acknowledge is the tripling of the size of the Trump Tower Penthouse […] Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. […] This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin. Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways.”
We tried to run that through the translator, and Google exploded.
“Donald Trump professed to ‘know more about real estate than other people’ and to be ‘more expert than anybody else.’ He repeatedly falsified business records with the intent to defraud.”
To be fair, Trump didn’t say how he got to be such an expert.
BEFORE, MORE, AGAIN!
Anyway, $364 million dollars, a three-year ban on running any business entities in New York, a ban on borrowing money from any bank licensed to do business in New York (presumably including Bailey Building and Loan), and the Trump Organization has to be overseen by a permanent and independent compliance director for as long as it exists. There’s also some interest already due on that puppy, which is estimated to put the fine north of $450 million. US.
But Donald Trump can still be president of the United States, somehow. Hell, after this and being banned from running charities or “schools” like Trump University, POTUS might be the only job he can have. And even then, he’ll be criming before his hand is even off the Bible.
Wonkette is funded by your donations and not by defrauding banks.
