The GOP frontrunner took to his perch at Mar-a-Lago after the ruling and vowed to appeal it
Trump vowed to appeal the $355 million fraud penalty handed down to him on Friday, after Judge Arthur Engoron found the Trump Organization liable for financial fraud and barred him from serving as a corporate officer or a director of a company in New York for three years.
The former president took to his perch at Mar-a-Lago soon after to denounce the ruling. Trump accused Engoron of being “crooked” and of having built a “perfect company,” despite being penalized for overvaluing his properties and inflating his net worth over several years — deceiving banks, investors, and insurers.
“This is Russia. This is China,” Trump lamented, once again pointing the blame at President Joe Biden, the Department of Justice, and Attorney General Letitia James — anyone but himself. “It’s election interference,” he continued, before declaring: “We’ll appeal. We’ll be successful, I think. Because frankly, if we’re not successful, New York state is gone.”
Then, without providing any proof for his claim, he said: “People are moving out of New York State, and because of this, they’re gonna move out at a much faster rate.”
Earlier in the day, Trump proceeded to have a meltdown on Truth Social and accused the “Fake News” of using artificial intelligence to create unflattering photos of him. He also called the decision a “Total SHAM” and attempted to rally his supporters with calls to “fight Crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized persecution at every step.”
On Friday, Engoron also ordered Trump’s adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, to pay $4 million each. In his September liability ruling, the judge agreed with New York prosecutors who argued that the former president had inflated the value of his assets by hundreds of millions — and even billions — of dollars, with outsized valuations used by Trump and his organization to secure favorable loans and business deals from financial institutions and lenders. Friday’s conclusion determined the punishment for the liability ruling.
After the fraud was discovered, the judge said that Trump and his executives lack of remorse bordered on “pathological.”
“They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. 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,” Engoron stated.
He continued: “Defendants’ refusal to admit error — indeed, to continue it, according to the Independent Monitor — constrains this Court to conclude that they will engage in it going forward unless judicially restrained.”
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The $355 million fraud penalty also arrives just weeks after a jury ordered the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination to pay E. Jean Carroll, whom he sexually assaulted in the Nineties, over $83 million in defamation-related damages.
