George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Friday that former President Donald Trump is “not likely” to see his properties seized by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat.
James filed judgments Friday against Trump and others in Westchester County, New York, where the 45th president owns a private estate in Seven Springs and the Trump National Golf Club Westchester.
Turley said James could find seizing the properties much more difficult than she thought.
“These properties are partnerships, they have leveraged debt. All of that has to be unraveled,” Turley told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. “So these aren’t just this, you know, one-to-one Trump-versus-James type of equation.”
“So in order to seize that property, she’s going to be pulled into court; there’s going to be challenges,” the law professor said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. Everyone is celebrating this idea that she’s going to padlock Trump Tower. It’s not likely to happen, and it’s certainly not likely to remain very long.”
“The other thing is that she could be harming the value of the property that she’s trying to seize with some of these actions,” Turley said of James. “I don’t think that matters to her, but it might matter to a court.”
Trump’s attorneys said Monday that the former president was having difficulty posting a bond of over $450 million to cover the judgment in a civil fraud case issued by New York Judge Arthur Engoron.
But Trump stands to gain at least $3 billion from the merger of Digital World Acquisition Corp. with the Trump Media and Technology Group, which was approved Friday by Digitial World shareholders.
Turley noted that the damages could be reduced by appellate courts.
“There is an issue here of the Eighth Amendment. There’s also an issue of due process in addition to that line of cases, which is rather thin, so this is going to be new ground for the courts to deal with. So this is sort of unsettled,” Turley said.
“The Supreme Court has on rare occasions stepped into state cases and said this is such a sort of over-the-top damage figure that it violates due process,” he added.
“New York is unique, I think, in this case, because they have made even the bond confiscatory. So, it’s not just the damages, but the bond rule that seems to be punitive and it’s certainly the use by James and this judge,” Turley said. “So those are going to be viable challenges, and it could go all the way to the Supreme Court.”
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
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