So long ago I had a business. An LLC. It was set up as an LLC because I was dealing with intellectual property and didn't want to be personally liable if I did anything...wrong. My business and its assets may be at risk but so long as the "corporate veil" was in tact my personal assets were safe. For the most part. I'm not making a value judgment on this arrangement. I understood the game and played it. Along with this business came contracts for work. In any contract there is an indemnity clause. Basically you make the person you are contracting with to indemnify you of any consequences from the use of the product or service you provide. So for example, I set up a e-commerce site and for some reason the prices on there are wrong. Yes, I'll fix it, but I don't owe you anything. You may not like it, but if you own a business you know full well, or will learn, that in the end, customers will look out for themselves (as they should) so you better do the same. It's not personal, it's business.
I say all of that because when I heard that NYC and NYS were investigating Trump I thought that not only was it unconstitutional in that, in America we are not supposed to investigate people in search of crimes but rather investigate crimes and uncover people. I also thought that given the number of people, including state agencies that were involved a LOT of other heads would eventually be put on the chopping block. We're talking accountants, lawyers, Officials that approved of permits etc. If Trump was so corrupt and making such obviously false claims, all those people who signed on and agreed to do business with him were *equally* corrupt then.
So then we had the state case against Trump alleging fraud. For example he somehow said his Trump Tower home was larger than it could possibly be. Now that's pretty bold. It's also something that could have been verified by checking the records. But here's the thing. If he lied to a bank to get a loan. The bank lends him the money and he pays it back, was the bank defrauded? Sure they may not have given him the money had he been honest (which I doubt) but the fact is, they loaned it and he repaid the loan. Contract fulfilled. How can the state come in after the fact and cape for the bank who has not been materially harmed?
And now we see this:
"
"We have a disclaimer," Trump told the Fox News host.
"Right on the front. And it basically says, you know, get your own people. You're at your own risk ... It may be way off."
Trump was describing the disclaimer that fills the second and third pages of his annual proclamations of net-worth — the 20-page "Statements of Financial Condition" at the center of AG Letitia James' massive lawsuit against the former president, his three oldest kids, and his real estate and golf resort empire.
and
Sure, the annual Statements of Financial Condition may be filled with real whoppers, including all those years — from 2012 through 2016 — when they tripled the actual square footage of Trump's triplex atop Manhattan's Trump Tower, adding as much as $200 million a year to the former president's net worth.
But each year, the disclaimers put banks on notice to double check the numbers before relying on them in deciding how much to lend and at what rate of interest, Morian said.
Banks should have done their own research? Who'd a thunk it? I suppose these same banks that were doing mortgage swaps on people who took out mortgages without any kind of income or asset verification were just used to doing business that way. Again, that's for THEM to take to court if they don't like it. It's not the place of NYS to cape for them.
The AG is alleging that ten years of Trump's Statements of Financial Condition contain a total of some 200 false and misleading valuations involving 23 properties.
Deutsche Bank can't be expected "to literally chase down everything in the statement and verify it," Florence said
Say what? Wikipedia (which I normally avoid) has the following on Deutsche Bank:
Total assets of 1.38 trillion Euros. They can hire lawyers and accontants who make more in one hour than I do in a day and they cannot be expected to verify info?
Really? You're going to a jury with that?
Personally, based on what I currently know, if I were the judge in this case I would throw it out for lack of standing. If Deutsche Bank feels it has been defrauded by Trump let THEM file a claim. Secondly, I would point out what i mentioned earlier, If a crime has not been reported to the state then it has no business investigating a citizen. By James' own admission she has been investigating Trump with the sole purpose of finding something to charge him with. No judge should allow their courtroom to be party to that.