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(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Once again, Donald Trump’s confusion about the law led to an entire news cycle of confusion.
Here’s Trump outside the courtroom yesterday celebrating his stunning victory.
“That last five minutes was outstanding because the judge essentially conceded that the statute of limitations that we won at the Court of Appeals is in effect, therefore about 80 percent of the case is over,” he burbled. “The way I interpret that, and the way some of the lawyers interpret that, is that the statute of limitations is a very real thing in this country.”
His lawyer Cliff Robert agreed.
“Based on the judge’s comments at the end of the trial today, it would appear that he is agreeing that all of the transactions that closed prior to 2014 are now out of the case.”
Ummmm …. no.
Or, at least, not in the way Trump thinks.
From the outset of this case, New York Attorney General Letitia James argued that loans which originated prior to 2014 were inside the statute of limitations because they were ongoing crimes as long as Trump was still making payments on them. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron agreed, but the First Judicial Department ruled in June that the older transactions were time barred.
AG James then pivoted to arguing that annual financial statements submitted to lenders on deals which closed prior to 2014 counted as both separate and ongoing criminal acts. After all, Trump had to demonstrate his continued creditworthiness to his bankers if he didn’t want them to call his loans or demand more collateral, and he did it by submitting vastly inflated statements of his own holding.
For his part, Trump argued that those later financial statements “relate back” to the original notes, and were thus barred under the SOL. But the court did not agree.
“Defendants would have this Court apply a bizarre, invented, inverted form of the relation back doctrine , pursuant to which if one aspect of fraudulent business conduct falls outside the statute of limitations, then all subsequent aspects of fraudulent conduct also fall outside the statute , no matter how inextricably intertwined,” Justice Engoron wrote last week in his order granting partial summary judgment to the state. “Of course, this is contrary to controlling case law, which holds that a cause of action accrues at the time when one misrepresents a material fact.”
And as he clarified this morning, he stands by that ruling.
“Every use of a [false] statement of financial condition in business starts the statute of limitations running again,” he said at the outset of the trial this morning, according to The Messenger’s Adam Klasfeld.
The confusion appears to have arisen during a dispute over evidence — not charges — which accrued before 2014. In particular, accountant Donald Bender, from the Mazars firm which prepared Trump’s financial statements for a decade, testified that the firm only considered information presented by the client, without verifying it.
“So, I just want to say, after all we have gone through this afternoon, that I trust that — well, that unless the Attorney General can relate all the discussions about 2011 documents to something that happened later, this has all been a waste of time,” the cantankerous jurist observed.
This prompted a spontaneous hosanna of gratitude from Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise, the former Florida Solicitor General appearing in New pro hac vice.
“We certainly agree with that, Judge,” he effused.
But the happiness was short-lived, except on the internet, where Trump’s supporters are still savoring the victory. As with every Trump story, the more you look at it, the dumber it gets.
Judge Shuts Down Trump’s Claim That He Reversed Himself on Statute of Limitations [Messenger]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.
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