This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A commentary published in the Washington Examiner warns that New York Attorney General Leticia James and a judge there, Arthur Engoron, are turning America into a "3rd World" country with their attack on President Donald Trump.
They have worked together to come up with a $450 million penalty for Trump and his business through an archaic fraud law – despite the fact there were no complaints against Trump, no one lost any money, all the loans were repaid, and the factors involved essentially included routine real estate deal procedures.
"The biggest casualty of this grotesque abuse of prosecutorial power will be America. We are losing the one thing that separates us from Third World countries: equal justice under the law," explained Elizabeth Stauffer, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation Academy and a contributor to multiple publications.
She pointed out that James repeatedly has threatened that if Trump cannot pay the fine plus interest, she will move to seize his New York assets.
Trump currently has a timetable to post a huge bond by next week should he want to appeal, a bond that has been called prohibitively high.
Trump's headache in posting bond "has left James salivating over the prospect of seizing Trump’s properties after the March 25 deadline," the column said.
It explained, "Engoron’s ruling found that Trump was liable for overstating the values of his assets on bank loan applications to obtain more favorable interest rates, which, as it turns out, is a common practice among commercial real estate developers. New York City is the financial capital of the world, and its bankers are among the most sophisticated and savvy on the planet. They expect developers to inflate property valuations and simply adjust them down to more realistic levels before making their lending decisions."
Significantly, the commentary said, all loans were repaid on time.
"Not only was this a victimless crime, according to George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley, but during the trial, 'witnesses [loan officers] testified that they wanted to do more business with Trump, who was described as a ‘whale’ client with high yield business opportunities,'" the report said.
And the ramifications already have started, with Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary perceiving the Democrats’ abuse of the legal system against Trump as an "attack on America."
"The reason this is the No. 1 economy on Earth is because we have laws and we have due process. And we have property rights. It attracts capital from all around the world. All of that is being shaken to the core here. It has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump at this point, in my view, and it is completely bipartisan. This is an attack on America. No one is going to put any money to work in New York in these amounts until this thing settles down. The whole world is watching, and everybody’s waiting for one thing we haven’t got yet: adult supervision," he said.
Stauffer suggested given the goals established by James and Engoron, "What investor, foreign or domestic, would risk buying property in New York? Or in any other Democratic-run U.S. city? James is going for immediate gratification here and ignoring the unintended medium- and long-term consequences that will surely follow. "
"O’Leary is right. Love him or hate him, this is bigger than Donald Trump. The biggest casualty of this grotesque abuse of prosecutorial power will be America."
