George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley recently appeared on Fox News, where he sounded off on New York Judge Engoron’s ruling in the civil fraud case against Donald Trump. Turley slammed the judge for avoiding an “easy solution” while labeling his conduct “truly alarming.”
As background, Engoron ruled that former President Donald Trump must pay a nearly $464 million legal fine. However, it is difficult for Trump to come up with the cash for posting a bond because the majority of his assets lie in non-liquid real estate.
Turley was highly critical of the judge’s mandate that Trump pay the entire judgment in full prior to his appeal of the case. Instead, the law professor suggested a more reasonable option where the GOP frontrunner could pay $100 million in cash and negotiate other terms that would not involve liquidating his assets.
The legal scholar further criticized Engoron’s order, suggesting that the nearly half-a-billion-dollar fine is seemingly arbitrary. He added that at some point in this litigation, a more reasonable judge will have to take up the case and make a more sensible ruling.
“If the court was really concerned about whether Trump would be honest in future dealings, they could have just imposed a monitor,” Turley stated. “Instead he imposes this ridiculous amount of penalty on Trump. He could have picked any figure because none of us could make sense out of this. He could have said a trillion dollars and he just sits back and watches the defendant scramble to have to sell off properties in order to protect properties. And, you know, this is going to eventually have to go to some judge who is going to say enough. I mean, this really shocks the conscience.”
The law professor continued describing what amounts to “truly alarming” conduct within New York’s legal infrastructure. Many critics have suggested the ruling in the case could set a precedent for businesses and entrepreneurs to flee to other states after observing what happened to Trump.
“What’s happening to the New York legal system is truly alarming,” Turley continued. “This was one of the premier systems in the world for businesses and now people are fleeing New York. They see what’s happening here. And, you know, this is a judge who could have resolved this. He could have come up with an easy solution.” Watch Turley’s appearance on Fox News below:
Recent estimates place Trump’s net worth somewhere around $2.6 billion, mostly made up on illiquid assets such as his vast portfolio of real estate and commercial properties. Turley claims that Trump is “between a rock and a hard place” since Engoron refuses to deal with the case in a fair manner.
“This is a – this is just because of Trump’s portfolio being real estate. It’s the nature of his business. But those are fixed assets. Trump Tower isn’t going to go anywhere. He’s not going to abscond with it. They can take the $100 million that he has offered and then take other agreements that he won’t sell or change his interest in these fixed assets. That – anyone looking at that would say well, yeah. That seems fair. But that’s not the profile of this case. This judge has done nothing to introduce any element of fairness through this. And so you’re really between a rock and a hard place if you’re Donald Trump. You’ve got a portfolio with real estate and people don’t take real estate to float a bond.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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