One of the best presidents, Teddy Roosevelt, was the only native of New York City to become president until the worst, Donald Trump, won the high office. Now, the state of New York is helping to bring down this miserable, insipid, democracy-threatening horror of a man who we inflicted on the nation and the world. In devastating legal papers filed last week, New York Attorney General Leticia James reveals that the cheating con man we’ve known all these long decades cheated and conned in illegally misrepresenting the finances of his real estate firm. Whouda thunk?
At this, Trump was no apprentice, but a master manipulator of appraisals and valuations, faking the numbers up when needed and down when needed, bearing out what the former president’s former hatchet man Michael Cohen told Congress. The true worth of assets was of no consequence as he sought to maximize his gain and minimize whatever he needed to pay.
James presented these findings in Manhattan state Supreme Court to seek to compel Trump and children Don Jr. and Ivanka to submit to sworn testimony in the matter. Justice Arthur Engoron has plenty of evidence to support making the Trumps answer questions. Excellent going by James.
Meanwhile, from a D.C. courtroom, the U.S. Supreme Court rightly rejected Trump’s hollow claim of executive privilege regarding White House documents relevant to the attempted Trump putsch on Jan. 6 last. The House select committee probing the attack on the Capitol wants the records and shortly after the court ruled 8-1 against Trump, the National Archives was sending them to the House. Only Clarence Thomas agreed that an ex-executive could keep Congress in the dark.
Trump has never much been one for the rule of law, preferring the law of the jungle. But the law will eventually catch up to him. And it’s happening now, in New York and in Washington.
———
